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High debt autonomy and low tax autonomy often characterize evolving federations, making the bailout hypothesis very attractive in resolving subcentral government deficits. However, meeting both conditions is not enough to conclude that bailout expectations are the main reason for a potential deficit. There are many other factors affecting expectations and the real behavior of the agents involved: central government, subcentral governments, and the financial markets. Empirical research is the only means by which to determine the relevance of the bailout problem in each situation. To demonstrate this argument, the author describes an exhaustive analysis of the Spanish case. The main conclusion is that deficit seems to be better understood by a more traditional model of fiscal choices than by bailout expectations.

Abstract
How does rural decline affect electoral politics? A well-known argument is that the growing geographical polarisation of populations between prospering major cities and declining hinterlands is emerging as a cleavage of electoral politics in developed countries. But prior work has focussed on specific outcomes of rural decline rather than examining whether the geographical distribution of political attitudes and behaviours within countries has become more uneven in the last decades. Using a measure of party nationalisation capturing spatial differences in electoral support across districts in OECD countries over the last 60 years, we find that a declining rural population increases differences in the geographical distribution of partisan support within countries. Nationalisation determines a party's orientation toward distribution of public resources and support for region-specific interests.

The aim of this paper is to analyse fiscal policy in former Yugoslavian countries over the period 2001–2014. The contribution of the paper is threefold; first, we build a homogeneous database to describe the evolution of the main fiscal aggregates in each country using an identical analytical structure. Second, we analyse the composition of national tax revenues to determine whether common patterns are still present, or if they have evolved in different ways over time. Third, we pool data to analyse and compute the elasticity of budget imbalance, taxes and expenditure to the output gap. Our results show that tax revenue composition is still similar and that the economic cycle is very relevant in explaining the dynamics of both deficit and expenditure over Gross Domestic Product, but not revenues.

This paper examines which direction the sovereign debt crisis will take, considering whether or not there are circumstances that will lead to the integration of the European Union. Germany, as a consolidated economy, although with a misguided vision of the crisis, can choose to act as a cooperative leader or a hegemonic leader, in order to go beyond the current logic of the euro and design a scheme where the ECB has greater weight in the creation of common objectives, which will give new impetus to the project of political union. On the other hand, the paper will also compare the experience of the United States in the area of fiscal union, to conclude that it is necessary to strengthen the idea of political unity in Europe. However, this will be a long journey with an unforeseeable ending. ; En este trabajo, se plantea la cuestión hacia qué dirección se dirigirá la crisis de la deuda soberana, evaluando, si existen circunstancias que lo encaminen hacia la integración o no, de la Unión Europea. Alemania como economía consolidada, aunque con una visión equivocada de la crisis, puede escoger actuar como líder cooperante o hegemónico para tratar de ir más allá de la lógica actual del euro, diseñando un esquema donde el BCE tome más importancia en la creación de objetivos comunes, que den un nuevo impulso al proyecto de unión política. Por otro lado, se realizará una comparativa con la experiencia de Estados Unidos en materia de unidad fiscal, para concluir en que es necesario fortalecer la idea de unidad política Europa. Sin embargo, este será un largo tránsito y de final desconocido.