EMU has a unique macroeconomic framework that combines a single monetary policy with coordinated national economic and fiscal policies. Since the coordination process has some serious weaknesses despite having been modified several times in recent years, the idea of a single economic/fiscal...

Many people think that the European Union is about the creation of the single market. It is not. After hundreds of years of internal wars and millions of deaths, of tyrannies playing on nationalism and division, we tried to build a different, united Europe. Although they are extremely relevant,...

This paper explores the nuanced relationship between fiscal decentralization and fiscal sustainability. Employing panel data analyses, it scrutinizes how decentralization influences fiscal discipline across different governmental levels. Results for 185 countries show that while tax...

We propose a theory of tax centralization and intergovernmental grants in politico-economic equilibrium. The cost of taxation differs across levels of government because voters internalize general equilibrium effects at the central but not at the local level. The equilibrium degree of tax...

In economic unions the fiscal authority consists not of one, but many governments. We analyze whether partisanship of state-level politicians affects federal policies, such as fiscal stimulus in the U.S. Using data from close elections, we find partisan differences in the marginal...

Russia's regions are heavily exposed to regional income shocks because of an uneven distribution of natural resources and a Soviet legacy of heavily skewed regional specialization. Also, Russia has a limited mobility of labor and lacks fiscal instruments to deal with regional shocks. We assess...

The paper investigated the significance of fiscal rules and fiscal institutions, with the objective of achieving fiscal sustainability and growth in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is currently faced with unsustainable expenditures which have resulted in fiscal macroeconomic imbalances. To achieve the study...

In 2012, 22 EU countries signed the Fiscal Compact, an intergovernmental agreement aimed at backing EU fiscal rules with national arrangements. The main objective of the Compact was to strengthen compliance. Based on a survey of national independent fiscal institutions, we take a closer look at...

This paper discusses the future of the Stability and Growth Pact (hereafter SGP). Although Neoclassical economic models argue that strict fiscal and monetary rules minimize moral hazard and crowding out, in practice many governments adopt fiscal expansion (in recent years in the form of...