1. Introduction / Gene Park and Eisaku Ide
2. The difficulty of fiscal consolidation in France / Anna Konishi and Fr©♭d©♭ric Tristram
3. Fiscal performance in Germany : the role of electoral competition / Achim Kemmerling and Zbigniew Truchlewski
4. Fiscal performance in Italy : a historical institutionalist approach / Benedicta Marzinotto
5. Explaining Japan's fiscal performance : why has it become an Outlier? / Masayuki Takahashi and Takaharu Shimada
6. Fiscal performance in South Korea (1970-2012) : budgetary reforms with growing non-budgetary indiscipline / Myung-Koo Kang
7. Fiscal performance in Sweden / Jonas Edlund and Morinao Iju
8. Long-run fiscal consolidations in the United States : the history at the federal level / W. Elliot Brownlee
9. Politics, fiscal performance, and external sources of budget discipline in the United States, 1970-2013
10. Weaving the basket : elusive fiscal convergence in the European Union / Edward A. Fogarty
11. Conclusion / Eisaku Ide and Gene Park.