IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3941.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fiscal Federalism in Europe: Lessons From the United States Experience

Author

Listed:
  • Robert P. Inman
  • Daniel L. Rubinfeld

Abstract

The existing political and legal institutions of fiscal policy-making are under challenge. As the United States and the eastern European and Soviet states experiment with policy decentralization, the states of western Europe are looking to a more centralized policy structure via the E.E.C.. This paper seeks to raise issues of importance to all such reform efforts--notably, the need to consider, and balance, the inefficiencies of fiscal policy decentralization (spillovers and wasteful fiscal competition) against the inefficiencies of fiscal policy centralization (policy cycles and localized 'pork barrel' spending and taxes). The need to develop new fiscal policy institutions emphasizing voluntary agreements and responsive 'agenda-setters' is stressed.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert P. Inman & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 1991. "Fiscal Federalism in Europe: Lessons From the United States Experience," NBER Working Papers 3941, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3941
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3941.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bewley, Truman F, 1981. "A Critique of Tiebout's Theory of Local Public Expenditures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(3), pages 713-740, May.
    2. Nouriel Roubini & Jeffrey Sachs, 1988. "Political and Economic Determinants of Budget Deficits in the IndustrialDemocracies," NBER Working Papers 2682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Bernard, Andrew B & Durlauf, Steven N, 1995. "Convergence in International Output," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(2), pages 97-108, April-Jun.
    4. Todd Sandler & James C. Murdoch, 1990. "Nash-Cournot or Lindahl Behavior?: An Empirical Test for the NATO Allies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(4), pages 875-894.
    5. Oliver Hart, 1982. "A Model of Imperfect Competition with Keynesian Features," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(1), pages 109-138.
    6. Roubini, Nouriel & Sachs, Jeffrey D., 1989. "Political and economic determinants of budget deficits in the industrial democracies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 903-933, May.
    7. Robin W. Boadway & Frank R. Flatters, 1982. "Efficiency and Equalization Payments in a Federal System of Government: A Synthesis and Extension of Recent Results," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 15(4), pages 613-633, November.
    8. Kolstad, Charles D & Wolak, Frank A, Jr, 1983. "Competition in Interregional Taxation: The Case of Western Coal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 443-460, June.
    9. Scott J. Brown & N. Edward Coulson & Robert F. Engle, 1990. "Non-Cointegration and Econometric Evaluation of Models of Regional Shift and Share," NBER Working Papers 3291, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Inman, Robert P & Fitts, Michael A, 1990. "Political Institutions and Fiscal Policy: Evidence from the U.S. Historical Record," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(0), pages 79-132.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eugen DOGARIU, 2010. "Theoretical Aspects of Optimizing the Allocation of Public Financial Resources at Local Level," Timisoara Journal of Economics, West University of Timisoara, Romania, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 3(3(11)), pages 147-156.
    2. Mihai Ioan Mutascu & Bogdan Dima, 2005. "Politics And Interjurisdictional Transfers: The Romanian Case," Urban/Regional 0512009, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. M. Mar㈠& M. Sarcinelli, 1994. "The European Union: how to assign the functions of government," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 47(191), pages 341-377.
    4. Pinto, Santiago M., 2004. "Assistance to poor households when income is not observed: targeted in-kind and in-cash transfers," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 536-553, November.
    5. M. Mar㈠& M. Sarcinelli, 1994. "The European Union: how to assign the functions of government," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 47(191), pages 341-377.
    6. Mihai, Mutascu, 2008. "The Vote, The Politics and the interjurisdictional Transfers: The Romanian Case," MPRA Paper 12048, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Anwar Shah, 2006. "Fiscal decentralization and macroeconomic management," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(4), pages 437-462, August.
    8. Mutaşcu, Mihai Ioan & Crasneac, Alexandru Ocatavian & Dănuleţiu, Dan-Constantin, 2007. "The Taxes Impact On The Economic Growth: The Case Of European Union," MPRA Paper 6143, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Shah, Anwar, 2005. "Fiscal decentralization and fiscal performance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3786, The World Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Campos, Ed & Pradhan, Sanjay, 1996. "Budgetary institutions and expenditure outcomes : binding governments to fiscal performance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1646, The World Bank.
    2. Baqir, Reza, 1999. "Districts, spillovers, and government overspending," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2192, The World Bank.
    3. Robert P. Inman & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 1997. "Rethinking Federalism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 43-64, Fall.
    4. Guy Gilbert, 1996. "Le fédéralisme financier, perspectives de microéconomie spatiale," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 47(2), pages 311-363.
    5. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, "undated". "Political Institutions and Policy Outcomes: What are the Stylized Facts?," Working Papers 189, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    6. Borge, Lars-Erik, 2005. "Strong politicians, small deficits: evidence from Norwegian local governments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 325-344, June.
    7. Cukierman, Alex & Miller, Geoffrey P. & Neyapti, Bilin, 2002. "Central bank reform, liberalization and inflation in transition economies--an international perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 237-264, March.
    8. Christian Bjørnskov & Axel Dreher & Justina Fischer, 2008. "Cross-country determinants of life satisfaction: exploring different determinants across groups in society," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(1), pages 119-173, January.
    9. Paola Assael & Felipe Larraín, 1994. "El Ciclo Político-económico: Teoría, Evidencia y Extensión para una Economía Abierta," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 31(92), pages 87-114.
    10. Staehr, Karsten, 2008. "Fiscal policies and business cycles in an enlarged euro area," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 46-69, March.
    11. Alberto F. Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1999. "Budget Deficits and Budget Institutions," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, pages 13-36, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Kaminsky, Graciela L. & Pereira, Alfredo, 1996. "The debt crisis: lessons of the 1980s for the 1990s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 1-24, June.
    13. Inman, Robert P. & Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 1996. "Designing tax policy in federalist economies: An overview," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 307-334, June.
    14. Michael Sturm & Nikolaus Siegfried, 2005. "Regional monetary integration in the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council," Occasional Paper Series 31, European Central Bank.
    15. Massimo Morelli & Michele Tertilt, 2000. "Policy Stability under Different Electoral Systems," Working Papers 00-13, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    16. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    17. Shelton, Cameron A., 2007. "The size and composition of government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2230-2260, December.
    18. Feld, Lars P & Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 2001. "Does Direct Democracy Reduce Public Debt? Evidence from Swiss Municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 109(3-4), pages 347-370, December.
    19. Alesina, Alberto & Hausmann, Ricardo & Hommes, Rudolf & Stein, Ernesto, 1999. "Budget institutions and fiscal performance in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 253-273, August.
    20. Silvia Sgherri, 2002. "The fiscal dimension of a common monetary policy: results with a non-Ricardian global model," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 449-479.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3941. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.