Scotland is engaged in a lively and on-going debate on greater fiscal autonomy and independence, which is politically controversial, especially in respect of tax-varying powers. The Scottish Parliament has the power to make a balanced-budget adjustment in public expenditure by varying the basic...

An important problem for governments around the world is how to deal with the balance of public finances. Especially during the last 30 years, public finances have come under considerable strain, due to high spending obligations, for example for pensions or health care. To deal with raising...

Sustainable and inclusive growth in emerging Asian economies requires continued high levels of public sector investment in areas such as infrastructure, education, health, and social services. These responsibilities, especially with regard to infrastructure investment, need to be devolved...

Predicting available tax revenue accurately is a key step of fiscal policy. It has recently been shown that revenue projection errors have a direct impact on fiscal deficits. In this paper, we explore the relationship between the ideology of the finance minister and tax revenue projection...

In its upcoming budget, Quebec must stay on a tough road to fiscal balance.This study examines how Quebec's fiscal balance has deteriorated. By 2009, after 10 years of balanced budgets, the province faced an unsustainable structural deficit which, if left unchecked, would reach a staggering $12...

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...

This paper analyses intergovernmental transfers in France and Italy to assess how soft budget spending behaviors may result from slacks in institutional constraints or from phenomena related to political culture, like administrative practices or implementation of rules. It innovates on the...

This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal decentralization and budgetary performance in a sample of 28 OECD countries over the period 1995-2008, characterized by a consolidation of their average debt ratio. Two empirical questions are addressed: first, did expenditure and revenue...

Predicting available tax revenue accurately is a key step of fiscal policy. It has recently been shown that revenue prediction errors have a direct impact on fiscal deficits. In the current paper we explore the relationship between the ideology of the finance minister and tax revenue projection...

This study assesses fiscal sustainability in contemporary Spain at the regional level. Spain consists of 17 autonomous regions, two fiscal regimes differing in taxing autonomy, and two path-dependent types of communities with more and less legislatively recognized autonomy. Three of the 17...