Policy toward fiscal rules is an important issue in the countries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). According to a rough estimate, the countries with rules (all but North Macedonia) have complied with their debt and...

The paper examines the effects of political trust on fiscal consolidations. Building on the works of Easton (1965) and Gamson (1968) a theoretical framework is derived on the main channels through which the success of fiscal consolidation can be affected by the level of political trust in the...