Selected Online Reading on Fiscal Policy in Times of Crisis

• Budget Reform Before and After the Global Financial Crisis; Marc Robinson; OECD Journal on Budgeting; Volume 2016 Issue 1; 12 Aug 2016; pp. 29 – 63

Publisher's note:  Budgeting techniques are undergoing major change in many OECD countries in the wake of the global financial crisis. As part of this, many of the directions of pre-crisis budgeting reform are being critically reviewed. This paper reviews the past and future of budgeting reform. It also considers what will be needed to develop a more robust analytical framework within which to map future reform directions.

• Politics of Fiscal Consolidation in Europe: a Comparative Analysis; Walter J.M Kickert, Tiina Randma-Liiv, Riin Savi; International Review of Administrative Sciences; September 2015; Vol.81(3); pp.562-584

Abstract by the authors: The aim of the article is to comparatively describe and explain consolidation measures and political decision-making processes in 14 European countries. The consolidation measures followed a similar pattern. Hiring and pay freeze occurred almost everywhere, whereas more radical cutback measures were introduced only in a limited number of countries. Cutback decision-making was not a one-off event, but consisted of a series of stages, beginning with temporary and small measures and gradually evolving into more serious cutbacks, sometimes arriving at targeted cuts and political priority-setting. The political decision-making was moderate and gradual rather than drastic and swift. Exceptions to this general pattern were the Baltic states as well as those European countries which received financial assistance on the condition of swift and severe cutbacks. Economic factors and supra-national influences primarily explained the size of consolidation measures, whereas domestic political factors turned out to have limited explanatory power.

• The European Debt Crisis and Fiscal Reactions in Europe 2000–2014; Guido Baldi, Karsten Staehr; International Economics and Economic Policy; 2016; Vol. 13(2); pp. 297-317

Abstract by the authors: After the outbreak of the global financial crisis, some governments in the EU experienced serious fiscal problems, while others were less affected. This paper seeks to shed light on the divergent fiscal performance in the EU countries before and after the outbreak of the crisis. Fiscal reaction functions of the primary balance are estimated for different groups of EU countries using quarterly data for the pre-crisis period 2001–2008 and for the crisis period 2009–2014. The pre-crisis estimations reveal some differences in persistence and cyclical reaction between different groups of countries, but in most cases little feedback from the debt stock to the primary balance. The fiscal reaction functions of the countries that eventually developed fiscal problems do not stand out. The estimations on data from the crisis period show largely unchanged persistence and counter-cyclicality but much more feedback from the debt stock, and this applies both to the crisis countries and those less affected. In spite of large deficits and accumulation of debt, the underlying fiscal reaction has become more prudent after the outbreak of the European debt crisis.

• The Economic Crisis and Fiscal Trends in EU Member States; Paul Zai; Transylvanian Review Of Administrative Sciences; 2012 Feb; Issue 35E; pp. 256-268

Abstract by author: This article tries to present the most important measures that were taken by Member States in the period of the economic crisis. Since 2008, starting with the beginning of the economic crisis, the trend of increasing taxes in the European Union's Member States is evident and has continuously grown in 2010 and 2011. Most of the EU Members States focused more on indirect taxes, but the beginning of the economic crisis, prompted each state to have its own policy regarding taxation. Fiscal changes during the global economic crisis are needed in each Member State.

• Why the Sovereign Debt Crisis Could Lead to a Federal Fiscal Union: the Paradoxical Origins of Fiscalization in the United States and Insights for the European Union; Tomasz P. Woźniakowski; Journal of European Public Policy; 03 April 2018; Vol. 25(4), pp. 630-649

Abstract by author: This paper shows that the emergence of the federal power to tax is the result of a sovereign debt crisis at the state level. I analyse the fiscal history of the early United States (US) to demonstrate how the institutional flaws of the Articles of Confederation, mainly the central budget based on contributions from the states, so-called ‘requisitions’, led to a sovereign debt crisis on the state level, which triggered taxpayers’ revolts in 1786/1787. This social unrest, in turn, was perceived by the political élite as an endogenous threat to the union and paved the way for the fiscalization of the federal government, i.e., the creation of a fiscal union with the federal power to tax based firmly in the Constitution of 1789. This analysis concludes with four insights for the European Union (EU).

.

• Table of contents – Subscribe to this service to receive in your mailbox the table of contents and full text access of specialised journals, such as Fiscal Studies, OECD Journal on Budgeting / Revue de l'OCDE sur la gestion budgétaire.
• Online journal articles – You can access a broad collection of e-articles through our EBSCOhost search engine or via our EP Library Catalogue.

   

If you are unable to access the article you need, please contact us and we will get it for you as soon as possible.