France has a track record of persistent general government deficits, partly reflecting pro-cyclical fiscal policies in upswings. This has resulted in a quadrupling of its public debt-to-GDP ratio since the 1970s to above 80% of GDP. Reducing public debt is crucial because a high level of public...

France has a track record of persistent general government deficits, partly reflecting pro-cyclical fiscal policies in upswings. This has resulted in a quadrupling of its public debt-to-GDP ratio since the 1970s to above 80% of GDP. Reducing public debt is crucial because a high level of public...

We study the impact of fiscal revenue shocks on local fiscal policy. We focus on the very volatile revenues from the immovable property gains tax in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, and analyze fiscal behavior following large and rare positive and negative revenue shocks. We apply causal...

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...

The literature on socio economic implications of fiscal decentralization (FD) has recently been expanding, though only very few studies to day have looked at its macroeconomic effects. This paper investigates the relationship between FD and budget deficits. Using various measures of both...

Since the Tax Sharing Reform in 1994, the local government revenue of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has faced downward risk problems. This paper reviews the fiscal and taxation reforms in the central and local governments of the PRC and focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of fiscal...

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...

Since 1975, Viet Nam has gradually decentralized more fiscal responsibilities to local authorities. This study has two objectives: (i) to take stock of the current institutional framework for intergovernmental fiscal relations in Viet Nam, and (ii) to empirically assess the debt sustainability...

Recent theoretical research suggests that financing sub-national governments’ expenditure out of own revenue sources is linked to more responsible budgeting, because the financial implications of spending decisions then are internalized within a jurisdiction. We test this proposition...

This paper surveys the empirical research on fiscal institutions of the last three decades. The main results are: (i) Constitutional or statutory fiscal limitations have in most cases proved to be effective in cutting down public expenditure, revenue, and debt. (ii) Budgetary proce-dures matter...