Leading scholars and practitioners examine constitutional design and taxing, spending, and regulatory responsibilities at the federal, state/provincial, and local/municipal levels in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. This volume also explores the effects of intergovernmental fiscal relations on securing economic unions and improving social welfare.
Fiscal Federalism: A Comparative Introduction is a concise introduction to the ways in which the world's federations manage their finances. Topics covered include the distribution of taxation powers among different levels of government; regional equalization schemes; authority over natural resource revenues; and the impact of federal systems of government on pension, welfare, and income assistance programs. The book targets second-, third-, and fourth-year courses in Federalism and Comparative Politics at the university level, and will also be useful for practitioners and civil servants.
Judicial review of taxation in the world’s two most economically significant multistate systems, the European Union and the United States, has exposed a remarkable divergence. Although there are important differences between the competences of the two tribunals, the fact remains that the European Court of Justice has been much more aggressive in striking down Member State income tax rules than has the United States Supreme Court in comparable cases. This book – the only full-scale comparative analysis of the tax jurisprudence of the two judicial systems, now in an updated second edition – asks: Why this divergence? And what can the two tribunals learn from each other about adjudicating issues that arise from the interaction of tax regimes in the context of a single market? Among the contributory issues and topics covered are the following: – conceptions of sovereignty and federalism; – discrimination in direct tax matters as an obstacle to a meaningful single market; – allocation of taxation competences; – nonresident versus resident taxation; – double burdens on cross-border economic activity; – retroactive recovery of unlawful state aid in the European Union; – role of competition law; – the revenue interests of states; – levels of corporate taxation; – the OECD Model’s nondiscrimination rules; and – the preliminary interpretation mechanism of the Court of Justice. An insightful and penetrating analysis of a topic of material importance to governments, tax policy makers, and tax lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic, this book clearly explains how the Supreme Court and the Court of Justice continue to struggle with the conflict between generally accepted tax principles and the effective prevention of discriminatory treatment of taxpayers. All tax professionals concerned with the interaction of sovereignty, tax assignment, legislation, and judicial decisions in tax law will benefit greatly from its clearsighted and comprehensive treatment, as well as from its perspectives on the practical implications of each tribunal’s decision making.
Comparing Fiscal Federalism investigates intergovernmental financial relations and the current de jure and de facto allocation of financial and fiscal powers in compound states from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. The volume combines theoretical approaches with case studies and involves scholars from various disciplines, in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of different approaches, developments and trends. This includes outlining fiscal federalism’s basic principles and overall frameworks, investigating current constitutional/legislative settings and how financial systems function, as well as zooming in on a selection of emerging issues in financial and fiscal relations. The single chapters are based on comparative investigations under the umbrella of a broad definition of fiscal federalism that includes all varieties of federal systems.
Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Inquiry, Second Edition is a uniquely comprehensive, analytic, and genuinely comparative introduction to the principles and practices, as well as the institutional compromises, of federalism. Hueglin and Fenna draw from their diverse research on federal systems to focus on four main models--America, Canada, Germany, and the European Union--but also to range widely over other cases. At the heart of the book is careful analysis of the relationship between constitutional design and amendment, fiscal relations, institutional structures, intergovernmental relations, and judicial review. Such analysis serves the dual role of helping the reader understand federalism and providing a comparative framework from which to assess the record of federal systems. The second edition has been extensively revised and updated, taking into account new developments in federal systems and incorporating insights from the growing body of literature in the field. It includes two new chapters, "Fiscal Federalism" and "The Limits of Federalism."
As new federations take shape and old ones are revived around the world, a difficult challenge is to create incentives for fiscal discipline. By combining theory, quantitative analysis, and historical and contemporary case studies, this book lays out the first systematic explanation of why decentralized countries have had dramatically different fiscal experiences. It provides insights into current policy debates from Latin America to the European Union, and a new perspective on a tension between the promise and peril of federalism that has characterized the literature since The Federalist Papers.
What does federalism have to do with the political struggle between conservatives and progressives over economic policy? How do economic theories of fiscal federalism influence European, North American, and global forms of governance? In the first comprehensive account of the left-right politics of multilevel governance across federal, regional, and global levels, Adam Harmes identifies both free-market and interventionist political projects related to fiscal federalism. Harmes argues that these political projects and the interests that promote them explain a diverse range of phenomena across national contexts, across levels of governance, and over time. This includes the left-right dynamics of US and Canadian federalism, the free-market origins of British euroscepticism and the Brexit vote, the complex politics behind the NAFTA renegotiations, and the emergence of both populist and progressive challenges to global free trade. A highly accessible outline of fiscal federalism theory, The Politics of Fiscal Federalism also expands upon the broader value and policy differences between neoliberal, classical liberal, and Keynesian welfare economics on issues such as the role of the state, subnational and global trade, economic nationalism, and monetary integration. This original and innovative work demonstrates that a political economy approach is essential to the study of federalism, and why federalism and multilevel governance is a critical area of study for political economists.
"Fiscal Federalism and Equalization Policy in Canada is a concise book that aims to increase public understanding of equalization and fiscal federalism by providing a comparative and multidisciplinary perspective on the history, politics, and economics of equalization policy in Canada. The authors provide a brief history of the equalization program, a discussion of key economic debates concerning the role of that program and its effects, an analysis of the politics of equalization as witnessed over the last decade, and an exploration of the relationship between equalization and other components of fiscal federalism, particularly the Canada Health Transfer and the Canada Social Transfer. The result is an analysis of equalization that draws from the best scholarship available in the fields of economics, economic history, political science, public policy, and political sociology."--
This comprehensive scholarly book on comparative federalism and the Covid-19 pandemic is written by some of the world’s leading federal scholars and national experts. The Covid-19 pandemic presented an unprecedented emergency for countries worldwide, including all those with a federal or hybrid-federal system of government, which account for more than 40 per cent of the world’s population. With case studies from 19 federal countries, this book explores the core elements of federalism that came to the fore in combatting the pandemic: the division of responsibilities (disaster management, health care, social welfare, and education), the need for centralisation, and intergovernmental relations and cooperation. As the pandemic struck federal countries at roughly the same time, it provided a unique opportunity for comparative research on the question of how the various federal systems responded. The authors adopt a multidisciplinary approach to question whether federalism has been a help or a hindrance in tackling the pandemic. The value of the book lies in understanding how the Covid-19 pandemic affected federal dynamics and how it may have changed them, as well as providing useful lessons for how to combat such pandemics in federal countries in the future. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations, comparative federalism, health care, and disaster management. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
The COVID-19 pandemic bared the inadequacies in existing structures of public health and governance in most countries. This book provides a comparative analysis of policy approaches and planning adopted by federal governments across the globe to battle and adequately respond to the health emergency as well as the socio-economic fallouts of the pandemic. With twenty-four case studies from across the globe, the book critically analyzes responses to the public health crisis, its fiscal impact and management, as well as decision-making and collaboration between different levels of government of countries worldwide. It explores measures taken to contain the pandemic and to responsibly regulate and manage the health, socio-economic welfare, employment, and education of its people. The authors highlight the deficiencies in planning, tensions between state and local governments, politicization of the crisis, and the challenges of generating political consensus. They also examine effective approaches used to foster greater cooperation and learning for multi-level, polycentric innovation in pandemic governance. One of the first books on federalism and approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic, this volume is an indispensable reference for scholars and researchers of comparative federalism, comparative politics, development studies, political science, public policy and governance, health and wellbeing, and political sociology.
