Fiscal rules specify quantitative targets for key budgetary aggregates. In this paper, we review the experience with such rules in Japan and in the EU. Comparing the performance of fiscal policy in the 1980s and 1990s until 2003, we find that the fiscal rule of the 1980s exerted some but not...

We discuss two essential problems of the political economy of public finances: The principal agent problem between voters and elected politicians and the common pool problem arising from the fact that money drawn from a general tax fund is used to pay for policies targeting more or less narrow...

This paper develops an index measuring the adequacy of the institutions, rules and procedures governing the budget process in 46 African countries, presenting the most comprehensive analysis of African budget institutions hitherto conducted. The index includes the three stages of the budget...

The Partnerships pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development cuts across all the goals focusing on the mobilisation of resources needed to implement the agenda. Thailand’s “sufficiency economy philosophy” encourages the prioritisation of long-term sustainability over short-term...

The budget forms the legal basis of government spending. If a budget is not in place at the beginning of the fiscal year, planning as well as current spending are jeopardized and government shutdown may result. This paper develops a continuous-time war-of-attrition model of budgeting in a...

Anlässlich des Verfassungsgerichtsverfahrens gegen den Nachtragshaushalt 2010 der rot-grünen NRW-Landesregierung wird geprüft, ob zum Zeitpunkt der Verabschiedung im Dezember 2010 - aber auch perspektivisch in den folgenden beiden Jahren - eine Störung des gesamtwirtschaftlichen...

This paper explores the factors behind the time path of real spending and revenue in the West German states from 1975 to 2004. The empirical approach stresses robustness and takes into account a large set of economic and political variables. Our results suggest that common economic factors and,...

We investigate the impact of errors in medium run tax revenue forecasts on the final budget balance. Our analysis is based on fiscal data for the entirety of German states and takes advantage of revenue forecasts and respective errors that can be considered as exogenously given in the budgeting...