Assessing the Effects of Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers on Education Financing and Outcomes: An Overview of Seven Case Studies

Abstract

Presents evidence from seven country case studies—Sudan, Uganda, Indonesia, Colombia, Brazil, Bulgaria, and China—on how intergovernmental fiscal transfers have strengthened education systems and improved education outcomes, exploring how these countries have used transfers to (1) provide adequate basic education funding; (2) narrow education inequalities; (3) increase efficiency; and (4) incentivize better performance from various actors in the education sector, drawing mostly on the evidence presented in the case studies, but also including examples from other countries, mostly high-income countries, where necessary with some principles for the design and implementation of effective transfers for education. The case study countries differ in their stages of economic development and the number and size of their subnational jurisdictions. Gross national income (GNI) per capita varies from US$590 in Sudan to over US$10,410 in China. Although all of the case study countries have decentralized, considerable variability exists in the size of the basic education systems their sub-national governments manage.