An enlarged EMU? The procedural sources of fiscal policy in the new Member States

International Journal of Public Policy

Volumn 1, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 279-296

  Mulas Granados, C ^a   Onrubia, J ^b   Salinas Jimenez J ^c  

^a Oficina Económica del Presidente del Gobierno   (Spain)

^b UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID   (Spain)

^c Instituto de Estudios Fiscales   (Spain)

Author keywords

EU enlargement; fiscal discipline; fiscal institutions

Indexed keywords

EID: 84952960154     PISSN: 17400600     EISSN: 17400619     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1504/ijpp.2006.009804     Document Type: Article

References (37)

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27. Yalloutinen, S. (2004) ‘Fiscal institutions in the CEECs’, Draft Doctoral Dissertation, University of Jyväskyla.
28. Among these factors those most studied in the literature have been: the influence of the cabinet’s ideology on fiscal policy (Mulas-Granados, 2003a; Perotti and Kontopoulus, 2002); the influence of the electoral system and the budget process (Hallerberg and Von Hagen, 1997; Persson and Tabellini, 1999; Von Hagen et al., 2001), as well as the proximity of elections (Alesina et al., 1992; Maroto and Mulas-Granados, 2001). Finally, the degree of fragmentation in decision-making and its effect on the budget has been also widely studied (Grilli et al., 1991; Mulas-Granados, 2003a; Roubini and Sachs, 1989).
29. Both Lithuania and Poland have also introduced changes in other stages of the budget process.
30. Some elements of the empirical evidence presented in this section are based on the assessments by Gleich (2002), Martinez-Vazquez and Boex (2000) and Yalloutinen (2004).
31. This is, strictly speaking, different from simply using the index values in the analysis since the index values do not automatically translate into different forms of fiscal institutions.
32. For example, Hallerberg et al. (2003) form separate indexes for the commitment and delegation status. The index for commitment states emphasises the fiscal targets and the multi-annual frameworks (and the implementation stage of the budget process is not considered at all). The index for delegation states, in turn, describes the relative powers between the finance minister and spending ministers during the decision-making and implementation stages of the budget process.
33. Another more practical reason for not forming separate indexes for commitment and delegation status is simply that there would not be much variation especially in the commitment index. The coverage and degree of commitment of fiscal targets are rather uniform across countries and the multi-annual frameworks could not be considered due to insufficient experience of them. Further limitation comes from the fact that only one country is coded as a delegation state for the latter period.
34. The PEP index was not included in these regressions because the pre-accession programmes were not drafted during this period.
35. Note that the Finance Minister Index (Implementation) - MFI index - is the same between (A) and (B).
36. Gleich’s study also included index values for the latter period but at the time there were insufficient years to test them. Note also that in Gleich’s study, increase in the Parliament Index (Legislative) - PL index - means that the parliament’s power relative to the government is smaller.
37. The institutional data in these types of studies are in most cases based on questionnaires completed by country authorities. The inherent difficulty with this approach is that it is difficult to verify the correctness of the replies.