Product Description
This highly original book analyzes political decentralization and fiscal federalism in Canada and Germany, both traditional federal countries, and in Spain, a unitarian country engaged in the last two decades in a process of decentralization. The three key issues required for a well designed financing system are analyzed in depth herein, namely: tax assignment, equalization grants (i.e. redistribution of money from the wealthy regions or the national government to poorer regions) and the role of regional government in the administration of taxes.

Fiscal Federalism and Political Decentralization will be of particular interest to academics and researchers of economics, public economics, public finance and public choice. It will also appeal to politicians and policy makers as well as organizations and agencies related to the economy and fiscal federalism.

About the Author
Edited by Núria Bosch, Professor of Public Finance and José M. Durán, Lecturer of Public Finance, University of Barcelona and Institut d'Economia de Barcelona, Spain

Contents
List of contributors vii
Preface ix
Editorial introduction xi
INTRODUCTION
1 The financing system of Spanish regions: main features, weak
points and possible reforms 3
Núria Bosch and José M. Durán
PART I TAX ASSIGNMENT
2 Revenue assignments in the practice of fiscal decentralization 27
Jorge Martínez-Vázquez
3 Tax assignment and tax autonomy in OECD countries 56
Hansjörg Blöchliger
4 Tax assignment and regional co-responsibility in Spain 74
Juan A. Gimeno Ullastres
PART II FISCAL EQUALIZATION
5 Fiscal equalization: the Canadian experience 109
Robin Boadway
6 Fiscal equalization in Germany 137
Thiess Buettner
7 Fiscal equalization in Spain 147
Jesús Ruiz-Huerta Carbonell and Ana Herrero Alcalde
PART III TAX ADMINISTRATION
8 Tax coordination under the Canadian tax system 169
Paul Berg-Dick, Michel Carreau, Deanne Field and
Mireille Éthier
9 The decentralization of tax administration in Germany:
consequences 193
Alexander Ulbricht
10 Current situation and proposals for reform of Spain’s tax
administration 209
Alejandro Esteller Moré
Index 249