In the past decades many European countries implemented numerical fiscal rules in order to strengthen fiscal discipline on all levels of government. This development was intensified by the financial crisis in 2008. Although plenty of research points to the discipline-enhancing effect of these...

European countries employ heterogeneous and complex systems to regulate local government budgets. Although the topic has become increasingly relevant in the face of past and future economic and budgetary crises, there is a lack of cross-country studies in this field, due in part to the...