Blockchain Papers

Richard Bird, Roy Bahl

This paper is part of the IMFG Papers on Municipal Finance and Governance series. For a full list of papers, please visit http://bit.ly/2ylAa2D.

Omri Y. Marian

Virtual currencies are online payment systems that may function as real currencies but are not issued or backed by central governments. As demonstrated by recent events, virtual currencies present regulators with significant challenges. On May 23, 2013, the U.S. federal government brought an indictment against the operators of Liberty Reserve, a popular virtual currency, charging the operators with money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The same month, the Government Accountability Office ("GAO") made public a report exploring the potential tax-compliance risks associated with virtual currencies and economies. Legislators have also taken particular interest in one type of virtual currency-Bitcoin. On August 13, 2013, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security announced plans to start an inquiry aimed at establishing a regulatory framework for Bitcoin. This short Essay describes the mechanisms by which "cryptocurrencies"-a subcategory of virtual currencies-could replace tax havens as the weapon-of-choice for tax-evaders. I argue that it is reasonable to expect this shift to occur in the foreseeable future due to the contemporary convergence of two unrelated, yet parallel, processes. The first process is the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies, of which Bitcoin is the most widely recognized example. Unlike other virtual currencies that are associated with the existence of a virtual economy-usually in computer games-cryptocurrencies "function as a unique currency with [their] own free-floating exchange." Over the past three years, Bitcoin gradually gained the confidence of consumers, retailers, and service providers, and it is now effectively functioning as a currency in the real world. In fact, in August 2013, Bitcoin was officially recognized as a legal form of tender in Germany. Only two weeks earlier, a federal judge ruled that for purposes of U.S. securities regulation, Bitcoin is indeed "money."

Shujian Zhang, Jun Zhang, Shiyi Chen

Abstract Making use of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique and taking undesirable fiscal phenomena into account, this paper comprehensively quantifies the public finance performance of local governments in China during the course of fiscal decentralization reform. The introduction of undesirable fiscal outcomes into this assessment makes it possible to identify meaningful and informative characteristics of local public finance performance in China. When reforms are first implemented, local public financial performance improves because undesirable fiscal phenomena have not yet become too serious. The tax sharing system reform did not work well in its early stages, and negatively impacted public expenditure efficiency. The reform started to play a substantial role between 2001 and 2005, when local governments experienced better public finance performance. Corresponding to the deterioration of the financial sector in recent years, local public financial performance worsened after 2007. Further reform of the current fiscal and taxation system is necessary in China, to ensure a brighter future for the nation.

Samuel Siebie Ankamah

Fiscal decentralization has gained support by most of the world’s leading development organizations including the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development and, Asian Development Bank among others in the last two to three decades. It is therefore of much importance that some form of thought is given to the operations of this system to make it more beneficial. Drawing selectively on large academic and practical literature on fiscal decentralization and the articles in this volume, this article outlines the state of fiscal decentralization in current times. It then goes on to outline some key arguments in favor of and against fiscal decentralization as a system of government. The theoretical framework of fiscal decentralization is also discussed in this article with regards to the stabilization, distribution and allocation functions. An overview of this system of government so far as Ghana is concerned has also been touched on with much emphasis on the legal framework and the key sources of finance for subnational governments. Finally, a number of factors for improving and making this system more beneficial and sustainable over time are identified.

Aisha Ghaus-Pasha

This article discusses how the 7th National Finance Commission award and the 18th Amendment to the Constitution have strengthened the autonomy of the federating units in Pakistan. The former has empowered the provinces by increasing their access to financial resources, but there is the danger that it may increase the consolidated fiscal deficit unless both the federal and provincial governments increase their fiscal efforts and rationalize their expenditures. The 18th Amendment has the potential to change the structure of governance, but has been implemented in such a way that effective decentralization has been at least partially rolled back. For devolution to work in Pakistan, financing and the delivery of devolved services will have to be more effectively organized and managed.

John Ashworth, Emma Galli, Fabio Padovano

No abstract is available for this record.

Anwar Shah, Riatu Mariatul Qibthiyyah, Astrid Dita

Indonesia has come a long way from centralized governance to decentralized local governance, and today Indonesia ranks among the most decentralized developing countries. The Government of Indonesia is revisiting all aspects of local governance to make appropriate legal and institutional adjustments based on lessons leaarned during the past decade. An important area of this re-examination and possible reform is the central financing of subnational expenditures. The system of intergovernmental finance represents one of the most complex systems ever implemented by any government in the world. The system is primarily focused on a gap-filling approach to provincial-local finance in an objective manner to ensure revenue adequacy and local autonomy but without accountability to local residents for service delivery performance. This paper takes a closer look at Dana Alokasi Umum -- the most dominant program of unconditional central transfers to finance provincial-local government expenditures in Indonesia. The paper also presents illustrative simulations of alternative programs and compares these with the existing Dana Alokasi Umum allocations. The paper concludes that super complexity leads to lack of transparency, inequity, and uncertainty in allocation. Simpler alternatives are available that have the potential to address autonomy and equity objectives while also enhancing efficiency and citizen-based accountability. Such alternatives would represent a move away from the complex gap-filling approach to simple output-based transfers to finance operating expenditures. Capital grants would deal with infrastructure deficiencies. And the alternatives would institute fiscal capacity equalization as a residual program with an explicit standard to ensure that all local jurisdictions have adequate means to deliver reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of tax burdens across the country.

Gilberto Llanto

The 1991 Local Government Code devolved substantial spending, taxing, and borrowing powers to local government units. Moving governance closer to the people can generate a welfare gain but local governments must have adequate revenues to finance local development. The paper examines the current status of the tax-expenditure assignment and the intergovernmental fiscal relations, and identifies areas for reform. There is a need for a clearer and more accountable assignment of expenditure by eliminating particular sections of the Code, which serve as a route for national government agencies to be engaged in devolved activities, and for politicians to insert funding for pet projects, which distort local decision making and preferences. There is as well a need to review the tax assignment to improve local revenue generation. The allocation of intergovernmental fiscal transfers may be improved by introducing matching grants to improve equalization transfers to local governments, and performance-based grants to motivate greater local revenue mobilization. Without a clear funding source, unfunded mandates imposed on local governments defeats the purpose of the policy objectives set in those mandates. Local government alliances and cooperative undertaking may be a way to provide public goods with inter-jurisdictional spillover benefits. Consolidation, better coordination of local government activities, and resource pooling for better local service delivery are pathways indicated by successful experiences of LGU collaboration.

Андреас Каппелер, Albert Solé‐Ollé, Andreas Stephan, Timo Välilä

Spending on productive infrastructure is seen as an important contributor to long term economic growth. Several authors have documented a downward trend in public investment during the last three decades and warned about its possible detrimental effects on the economy. A not well-realized fact is that productive infrastructure investment is mostly provided by sub-national governments. The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of revenue decentralization on the provision of infrastructure at the sub-national level. We estimate the effects of revenue decentralization and earmarked grant financing on the level of sub-national infrastructure investment in 20 European countries over the period 1990-2009. The findings are compared to those obtained when using sub-national investment in redistribution, for which the theory predictions are different. To account for the high auto-correlation in the dependent variable, we apply a dynamic panel data approach. In particular, we use a Corrected Least Squares Dummy Variable (LSDVC) estimator with the lagged dependent variable included to account for the dynamic character of the dependent variable. The empirical analysis shows that decentralisation in terms of tax shares increases public investment in infrastructure; public investment in redistribution is not significantly affected by decentralisation. The positive link between total regional investment and decentralisation suggests that decentralisation on regional infrastructure investment is additional and does not go hand in hand with a considerable reduction in other types of regional investment, such as health, education or safety. As to investment grants, they have a positive impact on both types of regional investment. The negative interaction between investment grants and decentralisation for regional infrastructure investment suggest that the impact of tax decentralisation on regional infrastructure investment declines with increasing receipts of investment grants by regional governments. This result is intuitive. As the significance of the tax-decentralisation parameter suggests, higher regional decision autonomy leads to more investment in infrastructure. Attempts to undermine the power of regions through the backdoor - e.g. by introducing conditional transfers - will at least partly offset the positive effect of decentralisation.

Gover Baja Daza, Sergio Villarroel Böhrt, David Zavaleta Castellón

The second generation fiscal federalism (SGFF) approach is used as a reference to analyze the political and fiscal institutional design of Bolivia’s decentralization model and its evolution. Subnational public finance data up to 2008 is used to verify that decentralization of expenditure was higher than that of revenue, establishing a context of vertical fiscal imbalance that increased due to growing fiscal transfers during the positive external shock (boom) period. Consequently, the subnational fiscal surplus was not a result of internal efficiency but of excess revenues from such transfers. Panel models were estimated to identify and assess the implicit incentives embedded in fiscal institutions of the decentralization model. Findings at the municipal level are: i) misalignment of local spending with local interests due to dominance of transfers over own revenue (dominance of central government development policies); ii) incentive to spend transfers faster than own revenue (flypaper effect); iii) greater marginal contribution of own revenue to positive fiscal balances compared to transfers, thus introducing the seed for a soft budget constraint but hidden by the fiscal surplus; iv) disincentive to generate own revenue (tax and non-tax) due to the size and growth of transfers (disincentive to the culture of contributing to own revenue). Findings at the prefectural level are: i) misalignment with regional interests given the dominance of transfers over own revenue due to absolute lack of tax powers (until 2009); ii) high tendency to a soft budget constraint and, eventually, also fiscal bail-out, hidden by the fiscal surplus; iii) in only two departments collection of national-level taxes were higher, compared to transfers received in the same departments; iv) disincentive to pay the VAT (national-level tax) due to higher royalty transfers received, an effect not extended to other national-level taxes; v) high dependence from hydrocarbon-based transfers, and fiscal risk when this natural resource declines (both in volume and prices) due to volatility of international oil prices. Also, as a result of the decentralization model a positive and significant impact was found on education-coverage indicators, an important development objective of the national government.

Núria Vergés Bosch, Mateu Espasa, Albert Solé Ollé

Contents: Preface 1. Inter-regional Fiscal Flows: Introduction to the Issues, Nuria Bosch, Marta Espasa Queralt and Albert Sole Olle PART I: COUNTING MONIES: MEASUREMENT AND PRACTICE OF INTER-REGIONAL FISCAL FLOWS 2. Regional Fiscal Flows: Measurement Tools, Giuseppe C. Ruggeri 3. Regional Fiscal Flows: Determinants, Measurements and Meanings, Francois Vaillancourt Comment by Nuria Bosch and Antoni Zabalza 4. Constitutional Reforms, Fiscal Decentralization and Regional Fiscal Flows in Italy, Maria Flavia Ambrosanio, Massimo Bordignon and Floriana Cerniglia 5. Measurement and Practice of Fiscal Flows: The Case of Belgium, Paul Von Rompuy 6. Balance Sheet Federalism: Canada, Giuseppe C. Ruggeri Comment by Francois Vaillancourt 7. Balance Sheet Federalism: Methodologies, Results and their Determinant Factors for Spain, Marta Espasa Queralt and Nuria Bosch Comment by Guillem Lopez Casasnovas and Ramon Barberan PART II: BEYOND THE DATA: WHY SOME REGIONS GET MORE MONEY? 8. Federalism and Inter-regional Redistribution, Jonathan Rodden Comment by Carles Boix 9. Decentralization by Politicians: Creation of Grants-financed Local Jurisdictions, Stuti Kehmani 10. The Political Rationale of Regional Financing in Spain, Sandra Leon Comment by Santiago Lago 11. The Determinants of Regional Transport Investment Across Europe, Achim Kemmerling and Andreas Stephan 12. The Determinants of the Regional Allocation of Infrastructure Investment in Spain, Albert Sole-Olle Comment by Germa Bel PART III: IN OR OUT? REGIONAL REDISTRIBUTION AND THE STABILITY OF FEDERATIONS 13. Federalism, Regional Redistribution and Country Stability, Enrico Spolaore Comment by Massimo Bordignon 14. The Costs and Benefits of Constitutional Options for Quebec and Canada, Francois Vaillancourt 15. Staying Together? Scotland and the Rest of the United Kingdom, David Bell 16. The Costs and Benefits of Staying Together: The Catalan Case in Spain, Elisenda Paluzie Index

Heidi Jane M. Smith

This dissertation examines local governments’ efforts to promote economic development in Latin America. The research uses a mixed method to explore how cities make decisions to innovate, develop, and finance economic development programs. First, this study provides a comparative analysis of decentralization policies in Argentina and Mexico as a means to gain a better understanding of the degree of autonomy exercised by local governments. Then, it analyzes three local governments each within the province of Santa Fe, Argentina and the State of Guanajuato, Mexico. The principal hypothesis of this dissertation is that if local governments collect more own-source tax revenue, they are more likely to promote economic development and thus, in turn, promote growth for their region. By examining six cities, three of which are in Santa Fe—Rosario, Santa Fe (capital) and Rafaela—and three in Guanajuato—Leon, Guanajuato (capital) and San Miguel de Allende, this dissertation provides a better understanding of public finances and tax collection efforts of local governments in Latin America. Specific attention is paid to each city’s budget authority to raise new revenue and efforts to promote economic development. The research also includes a large statistical dataset of Mexico’s 2,454 municipalities and a regression analysis that evaluates local tax efforts on economic growth, controlling for population, territorial size, and the professional development. In order to generalize these results, the research tests these discoveries by using statistical data gathered from a survey administered to Latin American municipal officials. The dissertation demonstrates that cities, which experience greater fiscal autonomy measured by the collection of more own-source revenue, are better able to stimulate effective economic development programs, and ultimately, create jobs within their communities. The results are bolstered by a large number of interviews, which were conducted with over 100 finance specialists, municipal presidents, and local authorities. The dissertation also includes an in-depth literature review on fiscal federalism, decentralization, debt financing and local development. It concludes with a discussion of the findings of the study and applications for the practice of public administration.

Anwar Shah

During the past decade, Indonesia has
\n transformed itself from centralized governance to
\n decentralized local governance. Local governments were given
\n extensive expenditure responsibilities while keeping the tax
\n system centralized. To finance decentralized
\n provincial-local expenditures, Indonesia implemented a new
\n system of intergovernmental finance. This paper provides a
\n review of the equity and efficiency implications of the
\n current system of central-provincial-local transfers. It
\n finds that the system of intergovernmental finance
\n represents one of the most complex systems ever implemented
\n by any government in the world. The system is primarily
\n focused on a gap-filling approach to provincial-local
\n finance to ensure revenue adequacy and local autonomy but
\n without accountability to local residents for service
\n delivery performance. This is done through a great degree of
\n academic rigor using highly complex procedures. The
\n complexity leads to a lack of transparency, inequity and
\n uncertainty in allocation as well as creating incentives for
\n jurisdictional fragmentation and reducing own-tax effort.
\n Simpler alternatives are available that have the potential
\n to address equity objectives while also enhancing efficiency
\n and citizen-based accountability. Such alternatives would
\n represent a move away from complex gap filling and special
\n allocation approaches to simple, output based transfers to
\n finance operating expenditures. These would be complemented
\n by capital grants to deal with infrastructure deficiencies,
\n and fiscal capacity equalization as a residual program with
\n an explicit standard to ensure that all local jurisdictions
\n have adequate means to deliver reasonably comparable levels
\n of public services at reasonably comparable levels of tax
\n burdens across the country. The paper argues that such an
\n alternative system of intergoveernmental finance would
\n preserve autonomy, while enhancing equity, simplicity,
\n objectivity, transparency and accountability.

Violeta Ruiz Almendral

The aim of this paper is to present a frozen image of the current Spanish system of fiscal federalism, in light of the tensions that the economic situation, has brought about. With this purpose, I will first broadly offer an outline of how decentralized Spain actually works, and how the decentralization process was brought about. Then I will focus on how the financing system works for most Autonomous Communities. Finally, I will attempt a preliminary analysis of the recent constitutional reform. A main conclusion of this paper is that fiscal federalism in Spain is, in fact, a work in progress. This paper has been previously published at the eJournal of Tax Research, (Australia); Volume 10, N. 1/2012.

Oriona Muçollari

The current Albanian Constitution (1998) defines communes and municipalities (local governments) as the basic units of local governments. Local governments are legal entities and perform all the duties of self-government, with the exception of those that the law gives to other units. There are a total of 373 local governments units, consisting of 65 municipalities and 308 communes. While municipalities govern urban areas and the communes rural areas, there is no substantive legal distinction between them. The fiscal decentralization reform in Albania has addressed the issue of adequate local recourses proportional to the competences. The decentralization of functions were supported with an increase of financing opportunities either through the increase of transfers from the state budget or by adopting the new system of local taxes and fees, the latter one by providing total discretion to the local government in setting local tariff policies to cover the cost of their services. Unfunded mandates can represent a risk if not addressed in an appropriate manner. In this article we are going to discuss about the local resources as instruments to increase the autonomy of the local governments versus the resources from the central government. The balance between the resources from the central government and the local own revenue should be, as much as possible equal.

Elisabeth Alber, Alice Valdesalici

Against the backdrop of the financial and economic crisis, federal and regional States are engaging in several reforms. The financial constitutional design and institutional setting in the area of fiscal and financial matters are being revised in order to better adapt to the current challenges, which result both from the supranational sphere of economic governance and the domestic one. The rationale behind these reforming processes lies in the struggle between the apparent needs to re-centralize while accommodating decentralization claims. The paper focuses on federal and highly regionalized European States by adopting a comparative domestic perspective and investigates reform processes in the area of fiscal matters and financial intergovernmental relations. It explores the most significant features that permeate the various legal orders, trying to single out the different trends in shifting powers in favour of either (re)centralization or decentralization. To this extent the recognition of autonomy on the revenue side and the accommodation of autonomy and solidarity within the new fiscal regimes will be analyzed. Moreover,intergovernmental cooperation in fiscal and financial areas will be scrutinized trying to point out crucial characteristics from a comparative perspective. To this regard particular attention will be given to major recently established bodies and procedures in the fiscal and public finance area as well as to their role within domestic economic governance.

Zubair Ali Shahid

No abstract is available for this record.

Authors unavailable

One important aspect of fiscal decentralization policy is delegation of authority and responsibility of management of public finance to regional governments, especially those of municipalities/districts. After more than ten years of implementation, it is now the right time to evaluate the policy questioning how effective its impacts on regional economic development. The study intends to find on how effective the performance of regional public finance is in providing basic infrastructures and how effective the provision of basic infrastructures reduces the poverty rates. By using panel data methods, this study confirms the positive relationship between performance of regional finance management and provision of basic infrastructures (especially those of road and electricity, but not that of drinking water). On the other hand, the relationship between the provision of basic infrastructures and poverty rates, as expected, is negative. This finding strengthens the belief that it is necessary to further enhance the basic infrastructures development to reduce poverty rates.

Ernesto Crivelli

No abstract is available for this record.

Jörg Faust

No abstract is available for this record.

Zhang Wei

Built on the theories about talent competition between rent-seeking and entrepreneurship, and the theories about constitutional environment and rent-seeking, this dissertation explores empirically the effects of a country's constitutional settings on entrepreneurship, in terms of the quantity of entrepreneurs and the quality of their performance. Both the de facto and de jure constitutional environments are studied. In particular, with respect to the de facto constitutional environment, I considered the property rights protection, decentralization, and the factors suggested by the "selectorate theory". In relation to the de jure constitutional environment, I focused on six aspects including electoral rules, form of government, federalism, property rights protection, judicial independence and antidiscrimination provisions. Three indexes were constructed to measure the de jure property rights protection, judicial independence and antidiscrimination provisions, using the data set provided by the Comparative Constitution Project.The empirical study first shows that the quantity of entrepreneurs is inversely correlated with the quality of entrepreneurship in a country. If entrepreneurship does serve as the engine of economic growth, it is perhaps the quality, rather than quantity, that matters. This study then demonstrates that the de facto property rights protection is associated negatively with the quantity of entrepreneurs, but positively with the quality of entrepreneurship. The effects of the two key factors of the selectorate theory, the size of the winning coalition and the ratio of this size to the size of the selectorate, also appear to be compatible with what the theory is to predict. On the other hand, neither fiscal nor political decentralization is found to significantly affect entrepreneurship. Among the de jure constitutional features, two have significant influence on entrepreneurship. First, the constitutional design of judicial independence has a negative effect on the quantity of entrepreneurs, but a positive one on the quality of their performance. Second, majoritarian electoral rules, compared with non-majoritarian rules, have a negative effect on the quality of entrepreneurship. In contrast, the presumed effects of the other three formal constitutional attributes, federalism, presidentialism and property rights protection, cannot be ascertained.Apart from the cross-country study, I also conducted a detailed research on China. Entrepreneurship in China is a case of entrepreneurial development in an authoritarian state lack of secure property rights and the rule of law, hence afflicted with profuse rent-seeking activities. Under these circumstances, entrepreneurship hinges on both the rent-seeking and the entrepreneurial abilities. Drawing on the private enterprise surveys, I found that, in China, the politically connected were systematically advantaged in terms of bank finance, entry to regulated industries and judicial treatment, when they plunged into the business world. The Chinese case also indicates that, when entrepreneurs cannot trust the commitment made by the state in the constitution, they will be eager to scoop profits as soon as possible and exit swiftly with accumulated wealth.Finally, this dissertation concludes by suggesting that a healthy development of entrepreneurship should be sustainable rather than aiming merely at quick money and instant success. It should allow all talented people to reach their full potentials, rather than keep the politically disconnected away from resources needed to make the best use of their potentials. Above all, it wants a constitutional environment with reliable property rights and equal access to opportunities, neither of which is seen in today's China.

Ahmad Burhanuddin

Abstrak Otonomi daerah dan desentralisasi fiskal mempunyai tujuan untuk menciptakan suatu kemandirian daerah. Tidak semua daerah mempunyai kesiapan yang sama dalam menciptakan kemandiriannya. Untuk mengatasi permasalahan ini, pemerintah pusat memberikan dana perimbangan/dana transfer kepada pemerintah daerah. Tetapi bukti  empiris beberapa penelitian menunjukkan adanya fenomena terjadinya flypaper effect pemerintah daerah di Indonesia, dengan indikasi dominannya peran dana transfer terhadap pendapatan daerah dalam membiayai pengeluaran pemerintah daerah. Penelitian ini menggunakan sampel sebanyak 30 daerah di Jawa Tengah yang bersumber dari Laporan Realisasi Anggaran Pendapatan dan  Belanja Daerah (APBD) dari tahun 2009 hingga 2011. Metode pengambilan sampel menggunakan metode purposive sampling . Alat yang digunakan penelitian adalah regresi logistik. Hasil dari penelitian ini Belanja Pegawai mempunyai pengaruh yang signifikan terhadap flypaper effect . Sedangkan Investasi Pemerintah Daerah dan Pembayaran Utang Pemerintah Daerah tidak berpengaruh terhadap flypaper effect . . Abstract Regional autonomy and fiscal decentralization has the objective to create a regional self-reliance. Not all regions have the same readiness in creating independence. To overcome this problem, the central government balance fund / fund transfers to local governments. But the empirical evidence, some studies suggest the existence of the flypaper phenomenon of local government in Indonesia, with an indication of the dominant role of the transfer of funds to finance revenue expenditure in the region. This study uses a sample of 30 regions in Central Java are sourced from the Report of Actual Revenue and Expenditure Budget (budget) from 2009 to 2011. Sampling method using Purposive Sampling method. Research tool used is logistic regression. The results of this study Shopping Employees has a significant effect on flypaper. While the Local Government Investments and Local Government Debt Payments had no effect on flypaper.

Nancy Wu Juanyu

The Hong Kong government has dedicated considerable resources to study and test the viability of office decentralization within the city since the 1980s, with objectives to achieve more sustainable industry spatial patterns and to relieve the Central Business District (CBD)from pressures created by high density of establishments and employment. Policies encouraging firm relocation from CBD areas to other office nodes have been implemented, and it was believed that the construction of new railway lines would facilitate such decentralization policies. In addition, a review of literature suggests that decentralization seems to be an inevitable trend in the evolution of a city. In particular, it was proposed by Smith & Selwood (1983) that decentralization could be industry-selective. \n \nWith this background, this research aims to examine whether industries in Hong Kong have actually exhibited decentralizing spatial patterns from the period 1995 to 2010and to compare trend of changes in spatial patterns among different industries. Four industries were selected as the target of study, which are (1) finance and insurance, (2) professionals services, (3) real estate, and (4) import/export, wholesale and retail trades. Their employment and establishment data at Tertiary Planning Unit (TPU) level were obtained from the Census and Statistics Department and processed. \n \nThrough the use of spatial tools, it was found that the real estate industry experienced most rapid trends of decentralization, both in establishment and employment. The other industries were less obviously decentralized; for the finance and insurance industry and the import/export, wholesale and retail industry, there even appeared indicators of stronger concentration in the study period. These findings provide strong support for future relocation policies to be industry-oriented. Another important finding is that for all industries in all study years, employment distribution tends to be more centralized than establishment distribution, which suggests that decentralizing people may be harder to achieve than decentralizing offices. It is thus envisaged that in the future, government policies regarding traffic management need to complement decentralization policies in order to alleviate transportation pressure in Hong Kong’s CBD area.

Wellington Jonga

No abstract is available for this record.