EMU started with eleven member countries as scheduled on January 1, 1999. The paper shows that the primacy of politics over economics in this decision could have serious consequences concerning the stability of EMU in the transition phase. Speculative attacks against currencies which are in...

This paper analyzes the impact of decentralization on overall fiscal performance in the European Union, taking into account fiscal institutional arrangements. We find that spending decentralization has been associated with sizably better fiscal performance, especially when transfer dependency of...

An important question in the process of European integration concerns the best institutional level for stabilization policies. The theory of fiscal federalism gives criteria for evaluating if fiscal stabilization policies should take place on a centralized or on a decentralized level. This paper...