In a bold legislative move, in 2009 Germany introduced a fundamental reform of the government borrowing rules which are specified in its constitution. In particular, state governments will be required to provide a balanced budget, abstracting from cyclical fluctuations, starting in the year...

Die finanzielle Schieflage der Kommunalfinanzen in Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) ist offensichtlich. Der kommunale Schuldenstand pro Einwohner in NRW lag Ende des Jahres 2022 mit 2.863 Euro deutlich höher als in den meisten anderen Bundesländern. Über 40 Prozent der kommunalen Schulden in NRW...

In many federal countries, local governments run large deficits, even when fiscal supervision by state authorities is tight. I investigate to which extent party alignment of governments and fiscal supervisors influences budget deficits. The dataset includes 427 German local governments for the...

Both the German federal as well as the general government recorded a surplus for the fourth time in a row in 2017. The fast consolidation after the Great Recession coincided with the transition period for the full introduction of the federal debt brake, which is sometimes interpreted as...

Despite strongly equalized per capita revenue and similar budgetary institutions, fiscal performance is increasingly diverging across German federal states. Given that state and local governments are endowed with expenditure autonomy, this paper investigates whether the composition of...

Die Bundesländer müssen bis 2020 ihre Haushalte ausgleichen und danach die Schuldenbremse einhalten. Aufgrund der erwarteten günstigen Rahmenbedingungen ist diese Vorgabe für die meisten Bundesländer moderat zu bewältigen. Sie können sogar Ausgabenzuwächse einplanen. Allerdings zeigen...

We study the effectiveness of local borrowing regulations in maintaining fiscal sustainability and the effect of supervision over municipal budgeting on local debt using a panel on municipalities in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2003 to 2011. The identification...

Despite strongly equalized per capita revenue and similar budgetary institutions, fiscal performance is increasingly diverging across German federal states. Given that state and local governments are endowed with expenditure autonomy, this paper investigates whether the composition of...