This paper provides a critical survey of the literature on politico-institutional determinants of the government budget. We organize our discussion around two questions: Why did certain OECD countries, but not others, accumulate large public debts? Why did these fiscal imbalances appear in the...

In this paper we collect detailed information on the budget institutions of Latin American countries. We classify these institutions on a `hierarchical'/'collegial' scale, as a function of their transparency and the existence of legislative constraints on the deficit. We then show that...