Despite its apparent advantages, devolution of fiscal responsibilities has not proceeded evenly over the past two decades. Decentralisation can strengthen the democratic process, allow governments to tailor the supply of public goods to local preferences and introduce some competition across...

In most OECD countries, public spending rose steadily as a share of GDP over the past decades to the mid-1990s, but this trend has since abated. The spending pressures stemming from the continued expansion of social programmes have been partly compensated by transient or one-off factors....

Despite recent cuts, the tax-to-GDP ratio in most EU countries remains much higher than in other economies. The tax mix is also different, with high tax wedges on labour and a stronger reliance on consumption and environmentally related taxes. While there is not much room for cutting taxes...

Rules constraining the discretionary powers of budget policymakers have become widespread among OECD economies, and the expanding role played by decentralised institutions in providing public services has led to their increasing adoption at the sub-central level.