It is widely argued that Europe's unified monetary policy calls for international coordination at the fiscal level. We survey the issues involved with such coordination of fiscal policy as a demand management tool and we use a simple model to investigate the circumstances under which...

Increased reliance on national frameworks to improve compliance with EU standards of fiscal soundness calls for coordination among EU member states. We focus on the rationale and forms of coordination among national independent fiscal institutions (IFIs). IFIs aim at strengthening governments’...

The chapter revisits the potential contribution of politically independent fiscal watchdogs (“Fiscal Councils”, or FCs) to improve fiscal performance. A simple theoretical model first illustrates that FCs cannot credibly exert a direct constraint on day-to-day policy choices. It is by...