WHY DO COUNTRIES HAVE FISCAL RULES?

more countries have adopted rules since the 1990s, from a universe of 10 countries in 1990 to 30 in 2001 and 51 in 2009 (figure 1). Another group of 46 countries had supra-national rules in place in 2009— most of them are EU members. Countries with fiscal rules had on average 2.5 active fiscal rules in 2009. ................
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