This book explores the origins, rationale, problems and prospects of the European fiscal policy framework. It provides the reader with a roadmap to EMU's budgetary framework by exploring its theoretical and empirical foundations, uncovering its historical roots and emphasising its supranational...

Under numerical fiscal rules, such as those underpinning EMU, governments have strong temptations to use accounting tricks to meet the fiscal constraints. Given these political incentives, fiscal variables that in the past were regarded as a mere residual acquire a strategic role. This is the...