The literature on fiscal federalism has amply discussed both the potential efficiency and welfare gains from decentralization and the potential trade-offs between decentralization and income redistribution. By contrast, it has generally put less emphasis on the effects of decentralization on...

Over the past few decades, a clear trend has emerged worldwide toward the devolution of spending and, to a lesser extent, revenue-raising responsibilities to state and local levels of government. One view is that the decentralization of spending responsibilities can entail substantial gains in...

This paper presents various models of control with advantages and disadvantages, the balance of which would make it more or less suitable to a particular country's circumstances. As these circumstances evolve-as fiscal and macro imbalances improve or worsen-the preferable model may change over...

It is commonly agreed that economic policies, including budgetary policies, can have potentially strong distributional effects. Traditional economic analysis held that economic policies affected the income distribution primarily through their impact on the rate of growth. More recently, it has...

The primary mandate of a national Treasury is to promote an optimal financial management of government resources, by ensuring that spending agencies are provided, in a timely manner, the resources needed for a smooth provision of public services, while minimizing the cost of government...

This paper is the text of the key-note speech on macroeconomics given by Christopher Allsopp at the 75th Anniversary Symposium of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) in Vienna on January 23rd 2002. It discusses the role of the European Central Bank, coordination issues between...