Principles and Practices of Fiscal Autonomy

This century has seen the continuation of long-term trends in the movement of the territorial boundaries of nation states alongside the emergence of new tensions. The repercussions of the Scottish referendum and the heightened urgency of the Catalonia question along with the continued economic problems faced by the Eurozone have given new energy and context to debates on institutional and fiscal autonomy. Assessing the impact of increasing calls for wider fiscal autonomy in the UK, Spain, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy and the USA this volume updates and adds significant new context to the debate. Framing the discussion on fiscal autonomy and drawing out ethical considerations it portrays the problems connected with the devolution of responsibilities and financial resources to sections of the population, sometimes content to be part of a lower layer of government, sometimes aspiring to an asymmetrical position or total independence. Introduction; 1: Old and New Federalisms in the American Continent; 1: Macroeconomic Challenges of Fiscal Decentralization in Latin America; 2: Federalism and Oil; 3: The Rise and Characteristics of Coercive Federalism in the United States; 4: The Success and Challenges of the US Federal System; 2: Old and Recent Federalisms in Europe; 5: Swiss Fiscal Federalism; 6: Fiscal Equalization in Germany; 7: An End of Federalism without Revenue-Autonomy? The Effects of Fiscal Equalization and the New Debt Brake for the German Länder; 3: The Desired Autonomy (or Independence?); 8: The Debate on Fiscal Decentralization in Scotland; 9: Fiscal Decentralization for Scotland; 10: Spanish Decentralization and Fiscal Federalism; 11: The Relation Catalonia/Spain; 12: Autonomy and Asymmetry in the Italian Legal System; 13: The Italian Regions with Special Autonomy and the Case of Trentino-Alto-Adige; 3: Statistical An nex; 3: Conclusions