In some ways, a 2012 symposium on “Dilemmas of State Debt” may seem a bit behind the news curve. At the end of 2010, municipal bond markets were in a deep funk. Analysts predicted that countless municipalities and perhaps one or more of the United States might default on their debt...

This document presents a detailed analysis of the structure of general government spending in Spain and its recent evolution in comparison to the rest of the European countries. The weight of Spanish public spending is similar to that of neighbouring countries, although below the average for a...

The dire current Sudanese nation socioeconomic and political situation is well known fact for the whole world. Economic collapse have been in process for years and poverty rates expand by the day. Socially, the country is in de facto disintegrating, public discontent developed into civil wars in...

This paper presents a panel data analysis of general government spending on health, education, and the major components of social protection in light of demographic trends (aging and migration) and selected domestic revenue sources (personal and corporate income taxes) across 27 E.U. member...

A high level of public services in housing, transport, education and health care is essential for liveability in urban centres, as shown in this report, with the help of European data for large cities. Inhabitants of larger cities, where the housing market is heavily commercialised in terms of...

The concept of the "quality of public finances" (QPF) covers many qualitative and structural issues of fiscal policy. This chapter traces the origins of the concept of QPF to the Lisbon Strategy and the subsequent EPC Working Group on "Quality of Public Finances" (2004‐2007). At its core, the...

International comparisons of inequality based on measures of disposable income may not be valid if the size and incidence of publicly-provided in kind benefits differ across the countries considered. The benefits that are financed by taxation in one country may need to be purchased out of...

This paper presents new evidence on the last concluded wave (2007-2013) of the EU cohesion policy. We depart from the broadly used GDP-growth approach and evaluate the impact of EU Structural Funds (SFs) on a battery of regional well-being indicators including economic, educational, health, and...