Fiscal federalism relevant for all kinds of government: unitary, federal and confederal. The concept of fiscal federalism is not to be associated with fiscal decentralization in officially declared federations only; it is applicable even to non-federal states (having no formal federal constitutional arrangement) in the sense that they encompass different levels of government which have de facto decision-making authority. This, however, does not mean that all forms of governments are 'fiscally' federal, only that 'fiscal federalism' is a set of principles that can be applied to all countries attempting 'fiscal decentralization'. In fact, fiscal federalism is a general normative framework for assignment
The Sense of an Ending received mostly positive reviews from critics. Michael Prodger of "The Financial Times" said the novel's inclusion on the Man Booker Prize longlist was "absolutely merited" and he praised the intricate mechanism of the novel and said Barnes's writing is "founded on precision as well as on the nuances of language." Prodger added "Its brevity, however, in no way compromises its intensity – every word has its part to play; with great but invisible skill Barnes squeezes into it not just a sense of the infinite complexity of the human heart but the damage the wrong permutations can cause when combined.