This study was prepared by Beate Schirwitz while she was working at the Ifo Institute’s Dresden Branch. It was completed in February 2012 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Law, Management, and Economics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in July 2012. It focuses on a...

This volume includes five self-contained chapters in the fields of public debt and fiscal transfer schemes. After an introduction to the topic, chapter 2 shows that the institutional setting of fiscal policy making needs to be considered when assessing the sustainability of fiscal policy. Using...