Governments struggle with rising service spending, and user charges represent a possible incentive mechanism to control costs. This paper investigates the relationships between costs and user charges in the sewage industry in Norwegian local governments. The analysis addresses the following...

Fiscal federalism implies a challenge of holding fiscal discipline at the local level. Recent analyses of fiscal adjustment have addressed the design of fiscal and political institutions for the U.S. states, and have shown how tax limits and anti-deficit rules strengthen immediate shock...