In the absence of an equalization grant system, like we justify occurs in Spain at the local level of government, those governments that bear a decrease in their level of tax capacity will have to adjust their budget either by increasing their level of tax effort, by reducing their level of...

This paper reviews current discussions on reforming the European Union (EU) budgetary procedure and assesses the main reform proposals that have been suggested thus far. It argues that prospects for reforms are presently hampered by the complex interplay between supranational and...

Uncertainty about the future preferences of the government may induce policy makers to run excessive budget deficits. As a solution to this problem, economists have proposed to impose a binding debt rule. In this paper we argue that a binding debt rule does not eliminate the distortions due to...

Fiscal uncertainty has led many states to utilize a variety of economic and revenue forecasting methods. To improve accuracy, many budget analysts use alternative projections generated by different techniques. Composite modeling goes a step further and allows users to systematically combine two...

The widespread ennoblement of the Spanish bourgeoisie in the sixteenth century has been traditionally considered one of the main causes of Iberian decline. I document and quantify the surge in ennoblement through a new time series of nobility cases preserved in the Archive of the Royal Chancery...

Using a panel data set for Dutch municipalities we estimate effects for weight-based, bag-based, frequency-based and volume-based pricing of household waste collection. Unit-based pricing shows to be effective in reducing solid and compostable and increasing recyclable waste. Pricing has no...

Budgetary difficulties in 1985 led the Idaho Legislature to adopt special fiscal measures. They included Agency appropriation cuts and a 14-month one-cent increase in the state sales tax. Similar steps had previously been taken in 1983. Data including the 1983 temporary tax hike period are...

Property tax abatements are commonly used by municipal governments as incentives for heightened levels of business investment in their respective communities. Widespread statistical evidence questions the efficacy of such policies. However, many of the studies to date rely on data samples that...

This paper contributes to providing insights into the impact of decentralisation on poverty. It starts out with an overview of which role decentralisation plays in strategies and policies for poverty eradication and derives economic and political impact channels. It concentrates on the economic...

Beginning with Tiebout (1956), numerous studies have argued that we should expect to see differences in public services among localities as a result of people "voting with their feet". Here, we consider differentiation in public services as a way of reducing competition among localities...