Symposium on Fiscal Decentralization‪.‬

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION Interest in fiscal decentralization has been rising in recent years, both within the formally federalized countries and outside--e.g. in the former Soviet Union States and the East European emerging economies. International organizations, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Inter-American Development Bank have also been encouraging the member countries to embrace fiscal decentralization as part of their broader strategies for enhancing efficiency of the public sector and for strengthening participatory decision-making at local government levels. In the European Union (EU), where the member countries are on the one hand, moving towards a federal-type constitution, they have also been concerned, on the other hand, to ensure that the proposed EU constitutional treaty does not threaten fiscal autonomy of their national governments. They fear that the law of subsidiarity may be in danger of being uprooted by the concentration of power in Brussels.