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...

What role can better quality of public finances play in supporting Europe's long-term economic growth prospects? This question was at the centre of the 2008 European Commission workshop on public finances. It was largely motivated by the pressures put on European economies and their budgets from...

In the theoretical macroeconomics literature, fiscal policy is almost uniformly taken to mean taxing and spending by a ‘benevolent government’ that exploits the potential aggregate demand externalities inherent in the imperfectly competitive nature of goods markets. Whilst shown to raise...