The subject of Fiscal Federalism is undergoing an intense, worldwide discussion. Despite its strategic relevance in the political debate, there is, on the whole, insufficient knowledge of, and agreement with regard to, the very concept, its principles, and its consequences. This sometimes leads to an overemphasis of political considerations instead of taking into account the socio-economic consequences of choices. This risk affects central institutions, as well as both the subnational and local levels.
This book on comparative fiscal federalism is linked to the research area of the Institute for Comparative Federalism of Eurac Research on financial relations and fiscal federalism. The Institute’s studies, consultancies, and publications focus on the distribution of powers and intergovernmental relations in financial and fiscal matters in federal systems, adopting a comparative approach and predominantly following a legal-constitutional perspective. Against this background, the major challenge of this volume was to bring together scholars from different disciplines and to promote, through their interaction, interdisciplinary insight in the field. In fact, one of the limits to a shared perspective on financial relations in federal systems is represented by the deeply divided disciplinary approaches that still exist on the same matter. The aim of this book is to overcome some of these differences by looking at problems and solutions, thereby transcending disciplinary differences through an issue-oriented approach. It is up to the community of scholars and practitioners to determine whether and to what extent this effort has been successful.
It is with the utmost sadness that we note the passing of the author of one of the chapters, Ronald L. Watts, on 9 October 2015. Ronald L. Watts was Professor Emeritus at Queen’s University, Fellow and Director of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at Queen’s University, and a Board Member and Chairman of the Research Committee of the Institute for Research on Public Policy. For years, he was—to quote the former President, Nico Steytler—“the heart and soul of the International Association of Centres for Federal Studies”. He was one of the founding members of the Association in 1977 and its president from 1992 to 1997. On several occasions, he was a consultant to the Government of Canada during constitutional deliberations, most notably in 1980–81 and 1991–92, and he was also a constitutional advisor to governments in several other countries. Besides being one of the most prominent scholars in the field of comparative federalism, he was also a wonderful and inspiring person, and was always an example to all of us. We will never forget how warmly he encouraged new generations of federalism scholars and how seriously he
We are grateful to all the authors for their commitment and cooperation in bringing this book together. It is our hope that this volume can provide a useful contribution to the debate on one of the most important and more tangentially studied aspects of (comparative) federalism and that it will inspire further studies in this field.
Alice Valdesalici and Francesco Palermo
Bolzano/Bozen, August 2017