Created at the initiative of Professor Michel Bouvier, FONDAFIP (Association for the International Foundation of Public Finance) is an independent institution whose aim is to promote and develop research in public finance and tax systems in France and abroad; to encourage exchanges between academics, professionals and policy makers; and to establish direct contact between field actors and academic researchers.
FONDAFIP is a 1901-law association founded in 2006 at the initiative of Professor Michel Bouvier. FONDAFIP is an independent institution whose aim is to promote and develop research in public finance and tax systems in France and abroad; to enhance exchanges between academics, professionals and policy makers; and to establish direct contact between field actors and academic researchers. It also aims at functioning as the centre of a network federating public- and private-sector institutions concerned with this field of research.
FONDAFIP intends to meet the need for reflection and international exchanges which is so present today, in a context where all, or nearly all, states are confronted with questions of financial governance and reform of their public finance and tax systems. It wishes to stand as an agora where anyone concerned with questions of public finance – in such varied fields as the new public finance management, local finance, social finance, European or international finance, public accounting or tax systems – can contribute and find ideas. Centred on questions of financial governance, particularly that of improving the use of resources while keeping public expenditure in check, FONDAFIP aims at advancing synergies between the different French and international components: the academic and research sector, public institutions, and private-sector companies (whose growing involvement as partners of state- and local community policies can only increase the potential interest in the work carried out within the framework of FONDAFIP).
FONDAFIP bases its work on a network of recognized experts – academics, state- and local community public servants, policy makers, private sector CEOs, heads of audit agencies – that enables it to provide support and advice in the field of public policies.
Its work is marked by four main characteristics:
- It approaches questions of public finance from the most diverse angles (economic, legal, sociological, political, historical…), and at all levels (international, national, local).
- It is governed by the general rules of scientific rigour, and excludes all forms of preconceived ideas. It places its action on a middle- to long-term time span.
- By the very nature of its objects of research, it is inherently both academic and operational.
- It is deeply involved in a comparative approach to all questions of public finance.
FONDAFIP enjoys the support of the Revue Française de Finances Publiques, an authority in the field, and benefits from the ground work carried out by the Groupement Européen de Recherches en Finances Publiques (GERFIP) in the past ten years.