The growth of interest in fiscal decentralization has meant that there has been something of a rush to enshrine this in policy - The World Bank has reported that about 70 countries see this as a major part of their development strategy. This book critically examines the case for decentralization. This collection of contributions comes from a worldwide team of experts, including Albert Breton, Piero Giarda and Anwar Shah. After analysing fiscal decentralization in general, the book goes on to look at intriguing case studies of various regions around the world including: The European Union;...

The past decade has seen important changes taking place in the tax regimes of many European countries. A comprehensive picture of what is happening in European fiscal systems has not been easy to find - until now. This comprehensive volume provides impressive analyses of tax systems and tax reforms in various European countries including France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. With a preface from Vito Tanzi and an impressive range of contributions, the book identifies and analyses the main common forces that drive fiscal reforms such as globalization, European reunification, and fiscal...

This book discusses the changing role of government finance in the twentieth century. It documents the enormous increase in government spending throughout the 1900s across all industrialized countries. However, the authors find that the growth of the welfare state over the past thirty-five years has not brought about much additional social and economic welfare. This suggests that public spending in industrialized countries could be much smaller than today without sacrificing important policy objectives. For this to happen, governments need to refocus their role on setting the rules of the...

This book discusses the changing role of government finance in the twentieth century. It documents the enormous increase in government spending throughout the 1900s across all industrialized countries. However, the authors find that the growth of the welfare state over the past thirty-five years has not brought about much additional social and economic welfare. This suggests that public spending in industrialized countries could be much smaller than today without sacrificing important policy objectives. For this to happen, governments need to refocus their role on setting the rules of the...

This work is part of the Integrating National Economies series.

Inflation distorts income taxes in many ways, but primarily by redistributing the tax burden among taxpayers. This study analyses in detail the effects of inflation on income tax systems in many countries. It examines some of the more important distortions of income tax systems caused by inflation and discusses possible corrective measures, ranging from automatic adjustments (indexation) to ad hoc responses. These corrective measures are compared with the actual experiences of many countries that have pursued policies aimed at neutralizing the effects of inflation. By treating the problem of...

Vito Tanzi offers a truly comprehensive treatment available of the economic role of the state in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from a historical and world perspective. The book addresses the fundamental question of what governments should do, or have attempted to do, in economic activities in past and recent periods. It also speculates on what they are likely or may be forced to do in future years. Although other recent titles in economics deal with normative theories, public choice theories, welfare state analysis, social protection, and the like, no other book has the same...

Vito Tanzi offers a truly comprehensive treatment of the economic role of the state in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from a historical and world perspective. The book addresses the fundamental question of what governments should do, or have attempted to do, in economic activities in past and recent periods. It also speculates on what they are likely or may be forced to do in future years. The investigation assembles a large set of statistical information that should prove useful to policy-makers and scholars in the perennial discussion of government's optimal economic roles. It...

"Dopo il miracolo economico che in circa 30 anni cambio' l'Italia da paese povero a paese ricco dopo la Guerra, il tasso di crescita dell'economia italiana comincio' a ridursi, negli anni settanta, e si ridusse gradualmente ma continuamente fino al nuovo secolo.Negli anni piu recenti non solo l'economia non e' cresciuta ma, a causa della crisi economica, il reddito medio degli italiani ed il PIL dell'Italia sono scesi al di sotto dei livelli raggiunto prima della crisi. Questi cambiamenti di "performance" non accadono per caso. Sono spesso causati da politiche sbagliate e da attitudini e...