Tabla de Contenidos: “…Foreword and Acknowledgements -- Executive summary -- Institutions visited -- Reforming fiscal relations: Going beyond the zero-sum game -- Switzerland: The new fiscal equalisation and responsability assignment framework -- Australia: The Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations -- Austria: The reform of the fiscal equalisation law -- Belgium: The Lambermont Agreement -- Canada: The equalisation reform -- Denmark: The Local Government Reform -- Finland: Restructuring local government and services -- Spain: Reforming the funding of Autonomous Communities -- Portugal: The reform of the Local Finance Law -- Italy: Law 42 on fiscal federalism…”

“…The paper examines the rationales for using fiscal rules, the various impacts fiscal rules can have, the factors making for effective implementation and the interactions between the various types of rule. …”

“…Years of spending increases above trend economic growth have led to high structural levels of expenditure, and some Canadian governments are now on unsustainable fiscal paths, a diagnosis made starker when taking an even longer-term view that considers the fiscal implications of demographic change. …”

“…This paper reviews fiscal relations within the European Union in the context of the theory of fiscal federalism and of the principle of subsidiarity. …”

“…OECD Working Papers on Fiscal Federalism…”

“…In this working paper, we decompose fiscal policy in three components: i) responsiveness, ii) persistence and iii) discretion. …”

“…OECD Working Papers on Fiscal Federalism…”

“…This paper reviews the fiscal relations between the three levels of government in Austria and points to the scope for reforming them with a view to improving the efficiency of the public sector. …”

“…This paper reviews recent trends in fiscal performance in Brazil, estimates fiscal reaction functions for the consolidated public sector and different levels of government, and tests for the sustainability of the public debt dynamics. …”

“…The Fiscal Federalism Working Paper series covers issues related to intergovernmental fiscal relations and local/regional public finance, such as: tax and spending assignment across government levels; intergovernmental grants; fiscal equalization; local and regional public service efficiency; inter-jurisdictional tax competition; and macroeconomic issues such as intergovernmental fiscal management and sub-central fiscal rules…”

“…Simulations show that fiscal consolidation policies are typically contractionary. …”

“…Despite its apparent advantages, devolution of fiscal responsibilities has not proceeded evenly over the past two decades. …”

“…This paper studies optimal stabilisation policies under commitment when monetary policy sets nominal interest rates and fiscal policy decides on public expenditure, income tax rates, and issuance of nominal non-contingent debt. …”

“…This paper analyses the reaction of fiscal policy to the cycle in OECD countries. The results suggest that while overall government balances were counter-cyclical in the past and more so in economic downturns than in upswings, discretionary fiscal policy was neutral on average. …”

“…The Administration has proposed the objective of stabilising the debt-GDP ratio by 2015, which is realistic in scope and ambition, though it requires fiscal tightening measures which are yet to be identified. …”

“…Conventionally, fiscal policy analysis makes a distinction between "discretionary" budget changes and "built-in stability". …”

“…Euro area entry calls for more fiscal flexibility to absorb cyclical shocks that cannot be dealt with by the common monetary policy. …”

“…With population ageing, fiscal consolidation has become of paramount importance for euro area countries. …”

“…This paper assesses how and in what circumstances, fiscal consolidations are affected by monetary conditions, using data covering 24 OECD countries over the past 25 years, Focusing on fiscal consolidation “episodes”, it is found that these tend to occur when large budget deficits threaten sustainability and usually when other macroeconomic indicators -- inflation, the exchange rate and unemployment -- suggest a “crisis” situation. …”