Fiscal Policy in Europe: How Effective Are Automatic Stabilisers?

It is largely recognised that fiscal policy will have largerresponsibilities for cyclicalstabilisation in EMU given the loss of the monetary instrument.At the same time, theEMU's budgetary framework emphasises the need to rely onautomatic fiscal stabilisers,rather than active policies in cushioning the business cycle.We show that automaticstabilisers are relatively powerful in the event of shocksto private consumption, but lessso in the case of shocks to private investment and exports.In the case of supply sideshocks, the automatic stabilisers are largely ineffective,but this may actually be a goodthing to the extent that supply-side disturbances call forstructural adjustment rather thancyclical stabilisation.     

Growth,Employment and Taxation with Distortions in the Goods and Labour Market

Abstract. This paper analyses taxation in the presence of distortions in goods and labour markets in an endogenous growth model. The government disposes of capital, labour and consumption taxes. It is shown that the market solution leads to suboptimally low levels of growth and employment. However, available tax instruments are sufficient to attain the first‐best growth path in this economy. The paper further explores the relative distortion of capital and labour taxes. For plausible parametrisations of the model, lowering capital taxes dominate reductions in labour taxes in welfare terms.     

New European Banking Governance and Crisis of Democracy: Bank Restructuring and Privatization in Slovenia

ABSTRACT

The paper makes three contributions to the understanding of the post-crisis European banking governance. First, it offers a more comprehensive approach to banking governance, beyond the Banking Union, through its concept of ‘New European Banking Governance’ (NEBG) that incorporates EU state aid rules and fiscal regulations. Second, it considers the impact of NEBG on democratic institutions and processes in EU member states, an under-researched topic in the literature on European banking governance. Finally, through its in-depth case study of Slovenia it considers the NEBG in relation to peripheral Eurozone states. It argues that the post-crisis banking governance framework of the EU not only severely constrained the Slovenian state in its policy choices but rearranged its policy-making institutions in a way that restricted and continues to restrict democratic banking policy formation.     

20世纪90年代拉美国家财政改革的经验与教训

20世纪90年代拉美国家的财政失衡有所缓解,但是债务负担依然沉重,尤其"顺周期"的财政政策导致宏观经济更加不稳定,削弱了抵御外部冲击的能力.在"华盛顿共识"的影响下,拉美国家主要实施了强化财政纪律、调整公共支出结构、大幅度削减关税以及国有企业私有化等方面的财政改革,试图通过中短期的财政调整来解决长期存在的发展依赖外资和收入分配不公等诸多结构性矛盾,然而这种改革方式的有效性非常有限,其财政改革的经验教训可为我国财政改革提供有益的启示和借鉴.     

INTEREG: A Twenty-region Input–Output Model for Italy

Since the regional scale turns out to be the scale at which fiscal devolution is likely to be accomplished in Italy, and that at which trade and growth interdependencies as well as regional convergence can be most conveniently investigated, a new 20-region input–output model for Italy seems to be a useful tool of analysis. Although various regional and interregional models have been constructed since the 1950s, none has been implemented for the whole system of 20 Italian administrative regions considered in their tight mutual dependence; also, the pool approach has not been greatly favoured, even in situations where direct information on regional trade is lacking. The main purpose of this paper is to report on the structure of the model, the rather complex procedure used in the model construction and the adopted solution technique. Some space is devoted to the problems encountered in handling regional trade endogenously in an input–output setting and to a comparison between the pool approach, used in the Italian model, and other current techniques. The paper also reports on some preliminary results regarding the regional impact of fiscal policy.     

On the cost-benefit of the regionalisation of the National Health Service

In this paper we analyse in formal terms the desirability of the regionalisation of a National Health Service. The policy consists of a devolution process, i.e. the increase in the health services provision to be decided by a region and financed by an increase in its revenues. The change is a marginal one, as it regards the part of supply of the health services exceeding a minimum standard, which for purposes of equity is maintained uniform in the national territory. As the central government is responsible for this component of the provision of health care (a federal “mandate”), the level of the said component is chosen by this authority and financed by federal taxation. Moreover, the government also applies an equalisation scheme based on the difference between a standard level of tax revenues and the revenues which the region is deemed able to raise for this purpose. Within the theoretical context of welfare improving reforms with distortionary taxation, we derive two conditions which focus on the regional, as well as the social, convenience of regionalisation. Received: May 5, 1999 / Accepted: January 21, 2000     

地方财政体制权责不对称问题研究

地方财政体制权责不对称已经成为分税制后我国地方财政管理体制运行中的一个较为突出的问题。主要表现为：事权划分原则性不强且缺乏法制化基础导致了政府间事权下移，地方政府级次过多与“倒轧账”式的分税模式引起了地方政府间财权上移，转移支付制度不规范造成了地方政府间财力差距日益扩大。为此，我们应选择相应的治理对策来完善我国地方财政体制。     

我国省际间财政差异趋势与影响因素的实证研究

本文通过1980-2005年间的样本数据,揭示1980年以来我国省际间财政差异的变化趋势,以及这种变化趋势的影响因素.我们的研究表明,在财政收入方面,受地区经济差异加大的影响,1994年以后财政收入差异有扩大态势,而分税制改革有助于缩小省际间财政收入差异.在财政支出方面,1995年以后财政支出差异呈上升趋势,这是地区间经济发展水平差异与分税制共同作用的结果,但是前者的作用远远大于后者.因此,缩小省际间财政差异的途径除转移支付外,还应当主要致力于缩小省际间经济发展水平差异.     

农村教育发展的财政保障

长期以来农村教育的特征，说明教育经费短缺一直是农村教育发展的突出矛盾。要对农村教育实施财政保障，须以整顿农村教师队伍为前提，在教育观念、国民经济结构、教育结构、政府预算结构及财政体制等五个方面作战略性调整，同时制止对学生的乱收费。     

我国生态环境保护和治理的财政政策选择

环境的公共产品性质和外部性，决定了它应该成为政府财政投资的重点。因而财政政策对环境保护和治理的影响极大。从总体上看，我国的财政政策在支持生态环境保护和治理中发挥了重要作用。但由于财政政策在设计上存在着缺陷，致使其在生态环境建设中的支持作用未能完全发挥。基于此，本文提出了完善我国生态环境可持续发展的财政政策建议。