Efforts to maintain balanced budgets, driven in part by formal requirements, lead to substantial pro-cyclicality in states' capital investments, transfers to local governments, and spending in areas like education and transportation. Extensive reliance on relatively volatile revenue sources...

States have soft budget constraints when they can expect a bailout by the federal government in the event of a financial crisis. This gives rise to incentives for unsound state fiscal policy. We test whether states with softer budget constraints have higher debt and deficits, receive more...

States have soft budget constraints when they can expect a bailout by the federal government in the event of a financial crisis. This gives rise to incentives for unsound state fiscal policy. We test whether states with softer budget constraints have higher debt and deficits, receive more...

States have soft budget constraints when they can expect a bailout by the federal government in the event of a financial crisis. This gives rise to incentives for unsound state fiscal policy. We test whether states with softer budget constraints have higher debts and deficits, receive more...

This article examines the theory behind the design of fiscal transfers; it identifies acyclicality of transfers as a drawback and proposes counter cyclical design as an optimal fiscal framework to mitigate cyclical economic fluctuations. It further advocates counter-cyclical transfers for...

Before the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, discussions were already taking place on how to complete Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and increase its resilience, inter alia, by speeding up economic convergence. The impact of the current unprecedented crisis on the euro area...

Before the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, discussions were already taking place on how to complete Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and increase its resilience, inter alia, by speeding up economic convergence. The impact of the current unprecedented crisis on the euro area...

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...

Fiscal rules that constrain sub-central government (SCG) budgeting are very common across the OECD, but there are substantial cross-country differences in their implementation and impact. This paper presents the 2011 update of the fiscal rules database established in 2005. As in 2005, budget...

Theoretical work based on social identity theory and in-group favoritism predicts that increased population diversity (e.g., due to immigration) reduces support for redistributive public policies. In this article, we add to the empirical literature testing this prediction in three ways. First,...