In recent years IUI has devoted considerable resources to research within the area of public finance - dealing in particular with taxes, public budgeting and local government behavior. In the summer of 1981 a small international seminar was arranged at the institute with participants from the U.S., U.K. and Sweden. The question of controlling local governments had by then become a focus of interest in all three countries, although there was a great deal of diversity in the way the problem was defined, and between the policies and institutional reforms proposed.
The papers presented at the seminar are published in this volume. Together they give a broad account of the background of the problem in terms of national fiscal institutions as well as a critical appraisal of current policy measures directed at local governments.
