The European summit in Dublin has shown that any further European integration will be determined in great measure by agreement on the financing of future Community budgets and by the EC’s expenditure policy. This article shows how the political controversy about the Community’s budget...

We analyze how the combined effect of automatic stabilizers and discretionary changes in tax-benefit systems have affected the cushioning of income shocks in the Euro zone and the EU-27 in the period 2007–2014. We propose a new summary measure of the combined effect of automatic stabilizers...