The relative constancy of non-financial corporate tax revenues as a share of US GDP masks offsetting trends in the ratio of corporate profits to GDP (declining) and the average tax rate (increasing). The average tax rate rose steadily between 1996 and 2003, an increase largely attributable to...

In a monetary union, the interaction between several governments and a single central bank is plagued by several sources of deficit bias, including common pool problems. Each government has strong preferences over local spending and taxation but suffers only part of the costs of union-wide...

In the European Union (EU), there are longstanding and ongoing pressures toward a tax that is levied on the EU level to substitute for national contributions. We discuss conditions under which such a transition can make sense, starting from what we call a ‘decentralization theorem of...

In the wake of the euro area crisis, the debate on instruments to deepen economic integration among its members has intensified, among others putting forward a fiscal stabilization capacity for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) members. Contributions made so far to further this idea have mostly...

There is a large, yet growing debate about the need to complement the European monetary union with a stronger fiscal union. This article reviews the potential trade-offs between effectiveness, moral hazard problems, and permanent redistribution. Addressing the counter-arguments against a tighter...