Bulletin n. 1-2/2014
November 2014
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Foremny Dirk
    Sub-national deficits in European countries: The impact of fiscal rules and tax autonomy
    in European Journal of Political Economy , Volume 34, June 2014 ,  2014 ,  86-110
    This paper empirically examines how fiscal rules and tax autonomy influence deficits of sub-national sectors across European countries. I use a new panel-data set to measure tax autonomy and the stringency of fiscal rules for EU15 regional and local government sectors over the period 1995 to 2008. I apply an instrumental variables approach to obtain an unbiased estimate of the impact of fiscal rules on deficits. I use political variables describing the central governments characteristics as instruments for fiscal rules at the sub-national level. The results show that the effectiveness of fiscal rules and tax autonomy depends on the constitutional structure. Fiscal rules decrease deficits only in unitary countries. Deficits of sub-national sectors in federations can be avoided through tax autonomy.
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