India's expansionary fiscal policy during the recent crisis resulted in higher government borrowing through 2008-09 and 2009-10. This borrowing requirement came in about 83% above the budget estimate in 2008-09, and 65% above the previous year in 2009-10. The debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 69%...

We quantify the fiscal multipliers in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. We extend the benchmark Smets-Wouters (Smets and Wouters, 2007) New Keynesian model, allowing for credit-constrained households, the zero lower bound, government capital and distortionary...

This paper is concerned with the question as to what extent population size and density affect the cost of providing public services at the subnational level. Empirical estimates of cost functions are obtained from an analysis of the expenditures of German states disaggregated into about 40...

This paper deals with the problems encountered in defining and measuring the degree of fiscal decentralization. Drawing on a recent analytical framework of the OECD, different measures of fiscal autonomy and revenue decentralization are presented which consider tax-raising powers of sub-central...

This paper examines the factors determining vertical government structures. An empirical analysis for a panel of OECD countries indicates that apart from preferences, economies of scale, and other factors, institutions explain cross-national differences in the degree of fiscal decentralization....

This paper is concerned with fiscal externalities arising from local taxation of a mobile factor. Using a panel of more 1100 local jurisdictions it provides empirical evidence on how the local tax rate as well as the tax rate in the neighborhood affect the local tax base. The results support the...

The paper examines the role of the vertical structure of the public sector for economic growth in Germany in a long?term perspective. A theoretical model shows that, due to spillover effects of public service provision across lower level governments, federal government activities could have...

To reinforce the long-term sustainability of public finances, the South African National Treasury has proposed a set of fiscal guidelines informed by three principles, namely: a counter-cyclical fiscal stance, long-term debt sustainability and inter-generational equity. Owing to the sound...

This paper covers fiscal policy tools that promote sustainability and their influence on monetary policy in Russia, the Bank of Russia's role in public debt management and main features of the domestic currency public debt market. At present Russia's budgetary circumstances are quite favourable,...

This paper focuses on the interactions between public debt policy and foreign exchange reserve management. We found that, although foreign currency debt issuance can contribute significantly to the growth of foreign exchange reserves, it can cause serious difficulties in the assessment of...