How much did France pay for its colonial empire? Did colonies benefit from large transfers from French taxpayers and private investors, or were they on the contrary drained of their capital? So far, Jacques Marseille (1984) was the only attempt to investigate these questions, by deducting from...

The COVID-19 crisis poses new policy challenges and has spurred new research agendas in public economics. In this article, we selectively reflect on how the field of public economics has been shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss several areas where more research is necessary. We highlight...

This paper surveys the empirical research on fiscal institutions of the last three decades. The main results are: (i) Constitutional or statutory fiscal limitations have in most cases proved to be effective in cutting down public expenditure, revenue, and debt. (ii) Budgetary proce-dures matter...