The behaviour of fiscal authorities and its interplay with budgetary institutions is a recent and increasingly important area of economic research, heightened by the move to single currency in Europe. This volume provides a systematic analysis of issues including the determinants of fiscal retrenchment strategies, the role of numerical and procedural rules, the composition of the adjustment, the (dis)similarity of fiscal behaviour across countries, the interactions between fiscal and monetary authorities, and the long run factors shaping fiscal behaviour and sustainability. Authors include leading academic economists, who have contributed to shape the research in these matters, and policy makers (from the ECB, European Commission, IMF, OECD) who provide an institutionally-relevant angle to the analysis.