Accounting conventions usually leave some room for judgment, which governments may be tempted to take advantage of, especially when fiscal rules bite or threaten to do so. The European experience over the past decade -- documented here in great detail -- illustrates that fiscal gimmicks come in...

Against a background of mounting demands for spending on services provided by sub-central governments, this paper examines how fiscal rules can help to ensure that pressure on resources is minimised and available resources are used efficiently. Drawing on questionnaire responses and other...

Using new surveys on more than 40 000 respondents in twenty countries that account for 72% of global CO2 emissions, we study the understanding of and attitudes toward climate change and climate policies. We show that, across countries, support for climate policies hinges on three key factors:...

Accounting conventions usually leave some room for judgment, which governments may be tempted to take advantage of, especially when fiscal rules bite or threaten to do so. The European experience over the past decade -- documented here in great detail -- illustrates that fiscal gimmicks come in...

Against a background of mounting demands for spending on services provided by sub-central governments, this paper examines how fiscal rules can help to ensure that pressure on resources is minimised and available resources are used efficiently. Drawing on questionnaire responses and other...

Norway, like a number of other countries, saw steep growth in house prices during the pandemic. This added to past years of strong price increases and has brought renewed concern for housing affordability. Tax advantages to buying homes inflate house prices, contribute to wealth inequality and...

France has a track record of persistent general government deficits, partly reflecting pro-cyclical fiscal policies in upswings. This has resulted in a quadrupling of its public debt-to-GDP ratio since the 1970s to above 80% of GDP. Reducing public debt is crucial because a high level of public...

Les éléments constitutifs du système fiscal belge influe sur le processus de croissance par des canaux différents et à des degrés divers. Les impôts sur la consommation sont parmi ceux qui faussent le moins la croissance et il est tout à fait possible, en Belgique, d’exploiter...

Welfare-to-work measures are a central theme of Israel’s labour and social policies to tackle relative poverty, which is concentrated among the Arab-Israeli and Ultra-orthodox (Haredi) communities. Policies include pilot programmes involving private-sector job placement (the “Wisconsin”...

This paper provides, for all OECD countries, an estimate of the net tax cost per currency unit of contribution to a tax-favoured retirement savings plan, using a present-value methodology. The latter takes into account the future flows of revenues foregone on accrued income and of revenues...