After noting the lack of enthusiasm of several well-known scholars concerning the adoption of both methodological holism and methodological individualism in its several versions, the present article shows that institutional individualism is a different mode of explanation from both of these and also that it is not the same thing as the so-called Popperian program of situational analysis. Institutional individualism is a mode of explanation that yields non-systemic and non-reductionist explanations at the same time as it allows for the incorporation into economic theories and models of the many formal and informal institutional aspects surrounding all human interactions, whether these interactions take place within stable structures of legal rules and social norms or whether they attempt to change the said rules and norms. Finally, the paper shows that it is possible for old institutionalists to make institutional individualist analyses of institutional changes while retaining the remaining methodological assumptions of the school. The same is true for new institutionalists. Some examples are offered from both camps.

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This paper investigates the evolution of sub-central government borrowing in Spain over the period 1996–2011. The arguments and figures provided show that the intense process of political and fiscal decentralisation that took place over the 1990s and 2000s did not lead to higher debt ratios in terms of GDP at these tiers of government until 2007. Although a kind of overspending bias was in effect until the late 2000s, the paper shows that the evolution of GDP and tax revenues provided regional and local governments with enough resources to vigorously pursue their devolved public policy responsibilities and still keep their debt ratios under control. However, since 2008, when the world financial crisis broke out, the situation has changed dramatically. Even though the crisis originated in the financial sector, the paper concludes by stressing the importance of creating incentives and setting controls through institutional arrangements characterising multilevel government for all tiers of government to save in periods of economic growth in order to confront the impact of recession once it comes.

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