We use a panel of 21 OECD countries from 1970 to 2009 to investigate the effects of different fiscal adjustment strategies on long-term interest rates - a key fiscal indicator reflecting the costs of government debt service. As Europe's sovereign debt crisis has shown, governments confronted...

We analyze the effect of budget consolidation on income inequality in 17 OECD countries while controlling for political and ideological differences. We find that the impact of fiscal adjustments on the Gini coefficient does not depend on the political party in power, but on the type of...

This paper analyzes the short-term effects of fiscal adjustments on macroeconomic aggregates for a panel of 20 OECD countries during 1970--2008. We find that episodes of budget consolidation have an insignificant impact on growth and consumption. On the other hand, fiscal adjustments are...

Abstract What is the impact of federalism on the size of government? On the one hand, various externalities and unexploited economies of scale caused by federalist institutions favour a larger size of government. On the other hand, some authors argue that federalism represents an institutional...

Zusammenfassung In der Theorie des fiskalischen Föderalismus werden räumliche Nutzen-Spillover als wesentliches Problem für die dezentrale Finanzpolitik betrachtet. Stellt eine Region öffentliche Güter bereit, die auch Bewohnern anderer Regionen zugute kommen, so können sich letztere...

Zusammenfassung Die Schweiz ist im internationalen Vergleich ein stark föderalistisch geprägtes Land. Trotzdem ist auch in der Schweiz ein Zentralisierungsschub zum Bund auszumachen. Die Reform des Finanzausgleichs von 2008 hat eine klarere Aufgabenzuteilung gebracht, konnte allerdings die...

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending in political economics. For a panel of the 26 Swiss cantons over the 1980-1998 periods, this paper explores the role of fragmented governments on fiscal policy outcomes. We distinguish between two variants...

In many countries, thinking about a (new) tax amnesty is currently in vogue. However, international experience shows that the financial success of such a tax amnesty is not guaranteed, in part because it is thought that tax amnesties may over time undermine tax compliance. This article conducts...