CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Tsaava, Alisa |
|---|---|
| Title | Fiscal (DE)centralization in Post-Unification Germany, 1990-2019 |
| Summary | The given paper addresses the issue of fiscal federalism and its centralization in the post-Unification Germany. The research is thus aims at answering the question of how the need to cope with increasing disparities resulting from Unification has affected and transformed the German fiscal federalism design. The research hypothesis was in spite of a significant degree of centralization, which is one of the hallmarks of German federalism, this centralization and redistribution of revenues was necessary to manage Unification. To test this hypothesis, the historical institutionalism approach was applied. Owing to this method, it has become possible to identify the key features of the German federal design that considerably influenced fiscal federal arrangements in the Federation. These three features – cooperation, centralization (or unitarism), and symmetry become more pronounced and enforced by the federal government when there is a necessity to confront serious challenges to the economic well-being of the Federation, or political stability. As soon as the need for such consolidation decreases, the states tend to support policies that are more competitive. Overall, despite many tensions between the rich and less well-off states, centralization during the post-Unification period significantly eased the incorporation of East Germany to the Federal Republic. Starting from 2020, the equalization scheme will cease to function, and the states will have to rely on themselves and maintain balanced budgets, which may serve as a confirmation that the German fiscal federal system enters its less ‘cooperative’ phase. |
| Supervisor | Professor Attila Folsz |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/tsaava_alisa.pdf |
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