Fiscal Policy, Taxation and the Financial System in an Increasingly Integrated Europe: (22 Financial and Monetary Policy Studies)

Three major challenges confront European policymakers and financial systems: (1) to preserve and strengthen policy co-ordination between the countries participating and the European Monetary System; (2) to design the future structure of the Economic and Monetary Union; (3) to implement constructive economic and financial responses to the major economic and political reform in Eastern Europe. The purpose of this book is to present a comprehensive analysis of these challenges, focusing on the relationship between fiscal policies on the one hand and financial systems on the other. The basis for the work is formed by the discussions, which took place at the 16th Colloquium of the Societe Universaire Europeenne de Recherches Financieres (SUERF). Private savings and the taxation of income from capital, imbalance in public sector budgets and their impact on financial systems, international resource transfers and the respective roles of governments and private captial flows, and the policy mix in the transition to Economic and Monetary Union are central themes of the book. This collection of papers, authored by members of the university, private financial sector and national and international policymaking communities, should be of particular interest to to policymakers, bankers, financial executives, and academics.

Table of Contents:
A Opening Addresses.- I Introduction.- II Monetary and Fiscal Policy in Portugal: A New Approach to an Old Challenge.- III Quelques réflexions sur le processus de transition vers l’union économique et monétaire.- IV On Policies Toward Saving.- B Private Savings and the Taxation of Income from Capital.- V Tax Policy and Private Saving in the 1980s: The United States Experience.- VI The Linkages Between Taxation, Private Saving Decisions and Financial Intermediation: Some International Comparisons.- VII Fiscalité et épargne des ménages en France à l’heure de l’intégration européenne.- VIII Household Saving, Interest Rates, Inflation and Taxation: Some Cross-Country Evidence.- C Imbalances in Public Sector Budgets and their Impact on Financial Systems.- IX Imbalances in Public Sector Deficits: The Dutch Experience.- X The Italian Public Debt Problem.- XI The EC’s Public Debt Disease: Discipline with Credit Spreads and Cure with Price Stability.- XII Financing Budget Deficits by Seigniorage and Implicit Taxation: The Cases of Spain and Portugal.- XIII Note on UK Experience with a Budget Surplus and Implications for Financial Markets.- D International Resource Transfers and the Respective Roles of Governments and Private Capital Flows.- XIV Labour Mobility, Fiscal Solidarity and the Exchange Rate Regime: A Parable of European Union and Cohesion.- XV International Resource Transfers and the Respective Roles of Governments and Private Capital Flows: Economic and Political Reforms in Eastern Europe.- XVI German Economic and Monetary Union: Impact on Private and Public Capital Flows.- XVII Synergy between Public Transfer and Direct Investments in the Reconstruction of Central Europe.- XVIII System Conditions for the Promotion of Foreign Capital Participation inthe Czech and Slovak Federative Republic.- E The Policy Mix, Monetary Policy, and Financial Stability in the Transition to Economic and Monetary Union.- XIX Fiscal Arrangements in a Monetary Union: Evidence from the US.- XX The Scope for Fiscal Policy in the European Community.- XXI La formulation de la politique monétaire dans le cadre de l’intégration financière en Europe.- XXII The First Stage Towards Economie and Monetary Union.- XXIII European Monetary Integration and National Budgetary Policies: New Rules for an Old Game?.- F Concluding Address.- XXIV General Report on the Colloquium.