Fiscal rules are institutional constraints on budget policymakers’ decision-making discretion aimed at fostering prudent fiscal policy, promoting overall fiscal discipline, and ensuring long-term fiscal sustainability. Since the European sovereign debt crisis, fiscal rules have been at the...

Neither Northerners are willing to invest in a South they perceive as unwilling to undertake necessary structural reforms, nor are Southerners willing to invest in their countries in a climate of austerity and policy uncertainty imposed, in their view, by the North. This results in a vicious...

The American system of political economy surely faces a fiscal crisis illustrated by but not limited to a trend of growing deficits and debt that cannot continue. What can’t continue won’t continue. In what fashion change occurs will be governed by forthcoming interactions between power and...

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...

Um den nachfolgenden Generationen ein funktionsfähiges Staatswesen übergeben zu können, ist eine Konsolidierung der öffentlichen Finanzen unumgänglich. Zu diesem Ergebnis kamen die Teilnehmer der Konferenz von Bertelsmann Stiftung, ifo Institut und International Monetary Fund im November...