The topic of the 43rd Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance was "Public Finance and the Performance of Enterprises." The title reflected profound changes in the thinking and approaches of economists traced back to economic developments such as the worldwide slowing down of economic growth, dwindling of productivity increases, growing unemployment, and rampant increase in public debt experienced during the 1970s and 80s. The Congress was not primarily concerned therefore with the economic efficiency of particular enterprises, but with the interface of Public Finance and the behavior of enterprises. The intent was to detect how fiscal policy decisions effect the behavior of enterprises and how this in turn influences the overall performance of an economy--to seek microeconomic foundations for macroeconomic relationships. This volume presents the proceedings of the 43rd Congress with papers from numerous international contributors.

History of International Institute of Public Finance by Karl W. Roskamp (p. 1-17) and Fifty years of public finance by Richard A. Musgrave (p. 19-50). Deals among other things with the fiscal role in distribution, problems in tax structure, international tax coordination, incidence and effects of taxation, efficiency cost of taxation, expenditure analysis, and fiscal federalism.

Since 1989, the postcommunist societies of Eastern Europe have been subject to policy advice and political and economic pressure which assumes that the development of 'free market' economies is the best route to economic growth and prosperity. The contributors to this volume take issue with this proposition. Though working from different theoretical perspectives, with different interests, they collectively argue that there are better ways to build dynamic and prosperous industrial economies in Eastern Europe than encouraging the respective societies of the region to ape the contents and swallow the myths of the Anglo-American form of capitalism. The contributors to this volume are among the leading authorities on economic transformation in Eastern Europe.

This report is the third Environmental Performance Review of France. It evaluates progress towards sustainable development and green growth, with a focus on energy transition and biodiversity.

The Influence of the Media