TY - BOOK ID - 84658687 TI - Too Small to Fail? Subnational Spending Pressures in Europe AU - Eyraud, Luc. AU - Moreno Badia, Marialuz. PY - 2013 SN - 1475572808 1475591543 129939518X 147552840X 9781475528404 PB - Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, DB - UniCat KW - Budget KW - Decentralization in government KW - Fiscal policy KW - Tax policy KW - Taxation KW - Economic policy KW - Finance, Public KW - Budgeting KW - Expenditures, Public KW - Government policy KW - Forecasting KW - International Monetary Fund. KW - Internationaal monetair fonds KW - International monetary fund KW - Government spending policy KW - Public spending policy KW - Spending policy, Government KW - Full employment policies KW - Unfunded mandates KW - E-books KW - Macroeconomics KW - Public Finance KW - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government KW - National Deficit Surplus KW - State and Local Government KW - Intergovernmental Relations: General KW - State and Local Budget and Expenditures KW - Intergovernmental Relations KW - Federalism KW - Secession KW - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General KW - Fiscal Policy KW - National Budget KW - Budget Systems KW - Public finance & taxation KW - Budgeting & financial management KW - Expenditure KW - Fiscal federalism KW - General government spending KW - Fiscal stance KW - Fiscal rules KW - Public financial management (PFM) KW - Ireland UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:84658687 AB - The purpose of this paper is to assess whether expenditure decentralization has contributed to weakening fiscal performance in Europe. Using a panel of EU15 countries for the period 1995-2011, we estimate three econometric models and ask the following questions: (1) does the form of spending decentralization affect the general government fiscal balance?; (2) is there evidence of spending duplication?; and (3) are soft budget constraints prevalent at the subnational level in Europe? Our results indicate that current decentralization models may have some shortcomings and efforts to achieve fiscal consolidation would require improvements in three areas: better matching subnational spending and revenues; reshaping some expenditure assignments to reduce overlap; and improving the effectiveness of institutional arrangements at the subnational level. ER -