The behavior 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 behavior across countries, the interactions between fiscal and monetary authorities, and the long run factors shaping fiscal behavior and sustainability.