The authors look at federal tax and spending policies that they say have increased the severity of the states' fiscal crisis. They suggest that the federal government should not preempt state tax bases and should be more concerned about helping the states than about providing tax breaks for...

India''s fiscal problem has deep roots in its federal fiscal system, where multiple players find it difficult to coordinate adjustment. The size and closed nature of the Indian economy, aided by its deep domestic capital market and large captive pool of domestic savings, has disguised the cost...

This paper exploits the introduction of the right of referenda at the local level in the German state of Bavaria in 1995 to study the fiscal effects of direct democracy. In the first part of the paper, we establish the relationship between referenda activity and fiscal performance by using a new...