A common political claim is that decentralized governments undermine policy-makers' ability to resist fiscal imbalance. This paper examines how fiscal centralization influences the likelihood of a successful fiscal adjustment. Using a panel of Swiss cantons from 1981 to 2001, we empirically...

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...

We provide empirical evidence on the influence of income taxes on the choice of residence of taxpayers at the local government level. The fact that Swiss communities can independently set tax multipliers, thereby shifting the progressive tax scheme that is fixed at the cantonal (state) level,...