European Comparisons

Abstract: This article points to the highly centralized nature of the British tax system. A first section shows how all tax law derives from Parliament, the “onlie begetter” of legally enforceable instruments. It is suggested that this system is not democratically accountable at sub-national levels of government. Reforms of the Thatcher era have resulted in the privatization of many public services, leading to the stabilization of State expenditure as a proportion of GDP.

Abstract : Switzerland provides a potential laboratory for testing various hypotheses connected with tax competition because of its extremely decentralized fiscal system. Twenty-six cantons (some of them extremely small) have retained the ultimate power of deciding tax questions, and hence not only to limit the Federal level of the State to about 1/3 of total public expenditure, but also to retain absolute power to set their own levels of taxation. Furthermore, citizens can launch referenda on tax issues at any level of government.

Abstract: The main characteristic of the French local tax system undoubtedly resides in a convoluted structure which impedes any progress in the development of tax competition between local authorities. On the contrary, recent legislative evolutions make obvious a trend of recentralization of the French local finance system illustrated by the fact the State is presently the first tax contributor to the local authorities’ budgets.

After the political changes in 1989-1990 Central- and Eastern-European countries went through significant political, judicial, economic and social changes. Although the political and economic transitions have been analized intensively, not too much attention has been devoted for a long time to some basic aspects of fiscal decentralization what can fundamentally determine the performance of economic and social institutions. Recently, the OECD and the World Bank conducted researches on fiscal decentralization and tried to initiate improving local governance.

Abstract: The arrival of the democratic State in Spain acquired its definitive form, at legal and institutional levels, when the General Courts approved the Constitution on October 31st, 1978, which was ratified on December 6th and sanctioned on December 27th. The establishment of a democratic regime and the recognition of freedom and rights, which our western neighbours already possessed, were complemented with a new set up of the territorial organisation of the state.

Abstract: The paper illustrates the evolution of the territorial system of government in Italy. A traditionally centralized state is turning into a quasifederation. The reasons underpinning this transformation are the growing insatisfaction with the inefficiency of the central government, the quest for autonomy by the fastest growing regions and the opposition by the latter to the interterritorial redistribution of resources made by the central government with the use of nontransparent and inefficient instruments.