Blockchain Papers

Xiaobo Zhang

No abstract is available for this record.

Lanlin Zhang

Since the endorsement of a socialist market economy in 1992 in the 14th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, self-financing and fee-charging principles have been widely adopted, and finally legitimized in China's higher education system. However, refonns in China's post secondary education, mainly privatization and tuition fee hikes, have produced some serious controversies and concerns among students, parents, and international education researchers. This article delves into the issues of post secondary education refonn in China and brings into attention problems that occur when policies are institutionalized in a centralized decentralization setting. Depuis l'adhesion a une economie de marche socialiste au 14e Congres national du Parti communiste chinois, les principes d'autofmance et de privatisation ont ete adoptes partout, et finalement legitime dans le systeme d'education tertiaire en Chine. Neanmoins, les refonnes dans le systeme d'etude post-secondaire chinois, surtout dans la privatisation et dans la hausse des frais de scolarite, ont provoque de serieuses controverses et des soucis chez les etudiants, parents, et chercheurs intemationaux sur l'enseignement. Cet article etudie les problemes de reforme au niveau post-secondaire en Chine et attire l'attention sur les problemes qui surviennent lorsque les politiques se font institutionnalisees dans un milieu de decentralisation centralisee.

Jennifer Bryce, César G. Victora, Jean‐Pierre Habicht, Robert E. Black · 5 authors

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the expectations held by World Health Organization programme personnel about how the introduction of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy would lead to improvements in child health and nutrition, to compare these expectations with what was learned from the Multi-Country Evaluation of IMCI Effectiveness, Cost and Impact (MCE-IMCI), and to discuss the implications of these findings for child survival policies and programmes. DESIGN: The MCE-IMCI study designs were based on an impact model developed in 1999-2000 to define how IMCI would be implemented at country level and below, and the outcomes and impact it would have on child health and survival. MCE-IMCI studies included: feasibility assessments documenting IMCI implementation in 12 countries (1999-2001); in-depth studies using compatible designs in Bangladesh, Brazil, Peru, Tanzania and Uganda; and cross-site analyses addressing the effectiveness of specific subsets of IMCI activities. RESULTS: The IMCI strategy was successfully introduced in the great majority of countries with moderate to high levels of child mortality in the period from 1996 to 2001. Seven years of country-based evaluation, however, indicates that some of the basic expectations underlying the development of IMCI were not met. Four of the five countries (the exception is Tanzania) had difficulties in expanding the strategy at national level while maintaining adequate intervention quality. Technical guidelines on delivering interventions at family and community levels were slow to appear, and in their absence countries stalled in their efforts to increase population coverage with essential interventions related to care-seeking, nutrition, and correct care of the sick child at home. The full weight of health system limitations on IMCI implementation was not appreciated at the outset, and only now is it clear that solutions to larger problems in political commitment, human resources, financing, integrated or at least coordinated programme management, and effective decentralization are essential underpinnings of successful efforts to reduce child mortality. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis highlights the need for a shift if child survival efforts are to be successful. Delivery systems that rely solely on government health facilities must be expanded to include the full range of potential channels in a setting and strong community-based approaches. The focus on process within child health programmes must change to include greater accountability for intervention coverage at population level. Global strategies that expect countries to make massive adaptations must be complemented by country-level implementation guidelines that begin with local epidemiology and rely on tools developed for specific epidemiological profiles.

Rifat Atun, Martin McKee, Francis Drobniewski, Richard Coker

OBJECTIVE: To develop a methodology and an instrument that allow the simultaneous rapid and systematic examination of the broad public health context, the health care systems, and the features of disease-specific programmes. METHODS: Drawing on methodologies used for rapid situational assessments of vertical programmes for tackling communicable disease, we analysed programmes for the control human of immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and their health systems context in three regions in the Russian Federation. The analysis was conducted in three phases: first, analysis of published literature, documents and routine data from the regions; second, interviews with key informants, and third, further data collection and analysis. Synthesis of findings through exploration of emergent themes, with iteration, resulted in the identification of the key systems issues that influenced programme delivery. FINDINGS: We observed a complex political economy within which efforts to control HIV sit, an intricate legal environment, and a high degree of decentralization of financing and operational responsibility. Although each region displays some commonalities arising from the Soviet traditions of public health control, there are considerable variations in the epidemiological trajectories, cultural responses, the political environment, financing, organization and service delivery, and the extent of multisectoral work in response to HIV epidemics. CONCLUSION: Within a centralized, post-Soviet health system, centrally directed measures to enhance HIV control may have varying degrees of impact at the regional level. Although the central tenets of effective vertical HIV programmes may be present, local imperatives substantially influence their interpretation, operationalization and effectiveness. Systematic analysis of the context within which vertical programmes are embedded is necessary to enhance understanding of how the relevant policies are prioritized and translated to action.

Vicente Ortún Rubio, Guillém López i Casasnovas

No abstract is available for this record.

Joseph J. Capuno

This paper attempts to trace and find evidence for the linkages between the quality of governance, and development at the local level since the adoption of the fiscal decentralization policy in the Philippines in 1991. The concern since then over the links has been prompted by the observed persistent imbalances in local development - across and within regions - which many believe is due to the less than prudent exercise of the devolved powers and responsibilities - hence, low quality of local governance. To be sure, the decentralization has led to not a few innovations in local service delivery and financing, and in increased people's participation in local civic activities. However, the spread of innovation has been slow and there has been less than genuine participation in the mandated local special bodies. The uneven quality of local governance thus may have contributed to imbalanced regional growth. Evidence also indicate that the initial level of economic conditions determine the acceptable quality of local governance, which explains why certain poor areas remain in the vicious circle of penury and misgovernance. To help improve the quality of local governance, some policy inputs are suggested.

Britta Klagge, Ron Martin

In recent years, stimulated by globalization, technological innovation and intensifying international competition, there has been a growing trend towards the increasing institutional and geographical concentration of financial systems and markets. At the same time, there has been mounting academic and policy interest in the financing problems faced by new and small firms, which are widely considered to suffer from a ‘funding gap’. These twin developments provide the motivation for this paper, which seeks to throw some theoretical and empirical light on the question of whether the spatial organization of the financial system impacts on the flows of capital to small firms across regions. Is it the case that a heavily spatially-centralized financial system, like that in the UK, militates against the ready access to capital by new and small firms in peripheral regions, while a more decentralized financial system, like that in Germany, results in a more even regional distribution? The paper first discusses this question theoretically in the context of the regional finance literature. It then compares capital market structures and the regional distribution of equity for SMEs in the UK and Germany. This comparison lends some support to the view that capital markets do not function in a space-neutral way, and that a highly centralized system like that in the UK may well introduce spatial bias in the flows of capital to SMEs. It also shows, though, as the case of Germany illustrates, that the actual impact of the geographical organization of capital markets depends on, and is mitigated by, other institutional and regulatory conditions. Our analysis suggests while a geographically decentralized financial system with sizable and well-embedded regional/local clusters of institutions, networks, agents, and markets could be advantageous in various ways, regional/local capital markets also face a number of major challenges and problems. The paper indicates the need for more research in this somewhat neglected area.

Rosa Maria Formiga‐Johnsson, Karin Kemper

The paper describes and analyzes river basin management in the most intensely urbanized and industrialized region of Brazil. The area covered by the Alto Tiete basin is almost coterminous with the Metropolitan Region of Sao Paulo. With a drainage area of 5,985 square kilometers (2.4 percent of the state's territory), the basin encompasses 35 of the 39 municipalities and 99.5 percent of the population of Greater Sao Paulo. Population growth and urban sprawl in Greater Sao Paulo have been rapid and uncontrolled in recent decades. In 2000, 17.8 million people lived in the basin and by 2010 the population is estimated to reach 20 million. This massive human occupation was accompanied by the large-scale construction of water infrastructure, including dams, pumping stations, canals, tunnels, and inter-basin transfers to and from neighboring basins. Today, the Alto-Tiete basin is served by a complex hydraulic and hydrological system. Despite this extensive water infrastructure, the water availability of the region is still very low (201 m3-hab-an) and even lower than the semiarid regions of the Brazilian Northeast. The two key management issues to be addressed in the Alto Tiete basin are water quantity to supply a burgeoning population, and water quality which is deteriorating to a point where water availability for a range of uses is severely affected. Urban flood control and mitigation represents another major challenge in the basin. Although important achievements have been made over the past 15 years, the decentralization process - characterized by the creation of the Alto-Tiete committee and its subcommittees and some financing from the State Water Resources Fund - has yet to reveal measurable physical results such as the improvement of water quality or the rationalization of water use. It is undeniable that the Alto-Tiete committee and its subcommittees have already played an important leadership role around several issues. An extraordinary mobilization around water issues, problems, and management has occurred, even though solving many water-related problems may be beyond the capacity of the committees or even of the water resources management system as a whole. Charging for water remains one of the key issues in making the Alto Tiete Committee more relevant and giving it more say in water investment and management decisions. As long as such decisions remain at the individual agency level (both state and municipal), decisionmaking will remain fragmented and it is unlikely that key policy instruments to curb water demand increases and pollution will be implemented.

Shawn D. Knabb, Christiana Stoddard

ABSTRACT Cross-country studies of education and economic prosperity often reach conflicting results when using growth rates as the measure of economic development. However, growth rates lack persistence over time and may not accurately measure long-term economic success over relatively short economic horizons. To overcome this potential specification problem, we estimate the relationship between key education variables and the capital to physical labor ratio. Using both cross-sectional and panel specifications, we find that both the primary-pupil–teacher ratio and decentralized education finance are associated with a larger capital to physical labor ratio. The relationship between human capital and expenditures, private education, and test scores are less robust.

Matthias Zana Naab

Matthias Zana Naab, PhDUniversity of Pittsburgh, 2005This study examines decentralization and democratic local governance in Ghana by assessing the effectiveness of the performance of District Assemblies (DAs) in order to better understand how DAs plan, implement, and manage development activities in close partnership with communities. It applied the proposition that decentralization and democratic local governance are expected to result in more efficient, effective, sustainable, and equitable outcomes through the hypotheses that decentralization results in more effective local government; more responsive local government; local government that is democratic, more accountable, and more participatory; local people having more positive perceptions of government; and local governments providing high quality services that respond to local demands.Engaging in both exploratory and explanatory research, this study identifies important variables and relationships as well as plausible causal networks that shaped local government and governance in Ghana. Using an inductive and theory-building design, it explains a model of decentralized governance and highlights potential partnership arrangements for the effective engagement of Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) in complementing the efforts of local governments.The results of decentralization, interpreted through questionnaires as well as stories and conversations with local people in two Ghanaian District Assemblies, was a combination of success and failure. In the two case study districts, the assemblies have resulted in a slight increase in development projects and services. However, the poor level of local revenue mobilization has limited the ability of the assemblies to finance significant development projects in their districts. Consequently, this has forced the assemblies to depend on the District Assemblies' Common Fund as well as on external donor funded projects and programs and on local people in self-help projects. The analysis of revenue and expenditure patterns in the two districts showed that per capita development spending was low, while recurrent expenditure and spending on local government infrastructure was high. District assemblies and CBOs often remain unwilling partners, and both are faced with serious capacity constraints which militate against structuring effective partnerships for service delivery. The successful implementation of decentralization depends on the degree to which national political leaders are committed to decentralization, and the ability and willingness of the national bureaucracy to facilitate and support decentralized development. Therefore, the ongoing process of decentralization in Ghana must be seen in the broader context of a deliberate redirection and change in the internal regulatory framework of the state.

Richard L. Hasen

In the 2004 presidential election, the United States came much closer to electoral meltdown, violence in the streets, and constitutional crisis than most people realize. Less than a 2% swing among Ohio voters toward Democratic candidate for President John Kerry and away from incumbent Republican President George W. Bush would have placed the Ohio - and national - election for president well within the margin of litigation, and it would have gotten ugly very quickly. Allegations of voter fraud and voter suppression were rampant on both sides, and even though Kerry conceded the election on the day after Election Day, public confidence in the U.S. system of American administration is now quite low. Previously unpublished data demonstrate that there is a growing partisan divide over views of the fairness of the election process.The bad news from the story of Election 2004 is that things likely won't get better in 2008. As Part I details, the extreme partisanship and close division of the American electorate, coupled with the Electoral College system, make the possibility of another razor-close presidential election in one or more battleground states fairly likely. Add to that mix election administration incompetence and a widely decentralized system of election administration with a patchwork of inconsistent rules. What's worse, since Bush v. Gore, losing candidates have become more willing to resort to election law as part of a political strategy: the number of election-law related cases in the lower courts has risen dramatically compared to the period before the case. It all adds up to a recipe for electoral meltdown.In Part II of this Article, I argue for three reforms that could significantly lower the risk of electoral meltdown. First, I advocate registration reform, in particular universal voter registration conducted by the government coupled with a voter identification program. There has been a wide partisan divide in the election administration debate between Democrats who have expressed concern about voter suppression and Republicans who have expressed concern about voter fraud. The registration reform I advocate can alleviate both of those concerns, minimize the potential for and political rhetoric regarding voter fraud, and eliminate a great majority of potential litigation surrounding presidential election administrationSecond, I advocate a transition to nonpartisan election administration. The nonpartisan solution aims to create both the actuality and appearance of neutrality in election administration, thereby bolstering the public's faith in the process. Australia and Canada serve as good models for reform in this regard, though not necessarily their nationalization of election administration. I consider how to assure that U.S. election administrators are truly nonpartisan, and contrast arguments for nonpartisan election administration with calls for nonpartisan redistricting commissions and campaign finance enforcement.Third, I discuss the role of the courts in minimizing electoral meltdown. The key here is to encourage courts to be more willing to entertain pre-election litigation and much more chary of entertaining post-election litigation. To the extent election administration problems can be recognized in advance, pre-election judicial review prevents future harm from occurring, rather than putting courts in the position of trying to undo the bad effects of a past harm. The costs of post-election review are large: the pressure put on courts to decide arcane election law questions when the outcome of an election - especially a presidential election - is huge, and the appearance of partisan decisionmaking is inevitable.

Thomas Döring

In the last 40 years, in public finance the examination of spatial aspects of federalism and intergovernmental fiscal relations was dominated by allocative and distributional issues. Modern growth theory and complementary approaches lead to a shift in the research perspective. Against this background the paper discusses how the findings of modern growth theory can affect the design of intergovernmental fiscal relations. The results of this analysis can be summarized as follows: (1) the existence of a geographically different growth dynamic provides an additional justification for a decentralization of political competences. (2) To cover more exactly the regional economic backward and forward linkages, especially local government authorities should intensify their cooperative behavior. (3) From the perspective of economic growth, the equalizing effect of horizontal transfers between decentralized jurisdictions should be limited.

Jon H. Fiva, Jørn Rattsø

Decentralization of government with property tax financing is the standard recipe for public sector reform. Fiscal competition is assumed to stimulate efficiency and hold down the tax level. Property taxation offers additional incentives for efficiency. We study the incentive mechanisms involved using data for decentralized governments and in a setting where they can choose to have property taxation or not. The empirical analysis addresses whether fiscal competition and political control problems influence the choice of having property taxation. The results indicate that both incentive mechanisms are relevant and consequently support the standard advice. Fiscal competition generates a distinct geographic pattern in local taxation and political fragmentation seems to motivate property taxation to control common pool problems. The main methodological challenge handled concerns spatial interaction with discrete choice.

Kazuhisa Matsui

Decentralization in Indonesia was introduced institutionally in 2001, with a democratization drive promoted by international donors and by the intention of the new government to clear away the centralistic image of Soeharto. Decentralization has had some effects on regional economies and on local government administration. Compared to the period before decentralization, the share of GRDP and local government finance has increased in Java, though investment and bank borrowing have expanded to the outer islands. In qualitative aspects, decentralization has transferred not only administrative authority but also many new vested interests from the center to regions. Local governments have become more extensive economic actors in regional economies. Regional economic actors now compete actively for such vested interests and have missed the opportunity to create market-friendly regional economies. The government sector should not be a mere rent-seeking economic actor, but should play a role as a facilitator promoting private sector activities in regional economies.

Jorge P. Gordín

This dissertation explores the politics of fiscal decentralization in comparative perspective. Case studies of Argentina and Spain are used to provide insights into the way that the distribution of institutional and economic resources in multitiered polities shapes the extent to which the policy of transferring revenue and revenue authority to subnational governments can be exploited for political gain. This approach draws attention to the political conditions that inhibit the coordination of fiscal reform efforts between the different levels of government and perpetuate the financing of subnational spending with revenue collected by the national government. This political context undermines national fiscal adjustment efforts and leads to economic catastrophes such as those experienced in Argentina throughout the last two decades. Specifically, this study uses statistical analyses and empirical institutional theory to show how patterns of territorial representation and bargaining strategies hindered revenue decentralization in Argentina but advanced it in Spain.The research suggests, first, coalition-building goals drive national executives in Argentina to reach out legislators of the opposition by means of allocating larger shares of federal transfers to the provinces the latter belong to. However, all else equal, legislatively overrepresented, i.e. economically marginal and sparsely populated, provinces will be targeted first. Second, the increasing role of regionalist parties in Spanish national politics and their acceptance in joint-policy mechanisms tilts the allocation of chosen federal transfers slightly in favor of economically developed and densely populated autonomous communities, which are generally governed by regionalist forces. Third, whereas Argentine subnational interests are "locked-in" at the Senate level and intergovernmental negotiations are conducted bilaterally, open-ended institutional arrangements and a relatively impotent senate in Spain boosted the redressing of regional concerns through informal intergovernmental fora and increasing multilateral collaboration Fourth, such differences in patterns of institutional representation and bargaining strategies explain the paucity of fiscal decentralization in Argentina and its relative progress in Spain.

イズミ ホシノ, 泉 星野, Izumi Hoshino

No abstract is available for this record.

Florence Eid

No abstract is available for this record.

Omar Khadeer Hussain, Elizabeth Chang, Farookh Hussain, Tharam S. Dillon · 5 authors

Risk is associated with almost every activity that is done in daily life. Analyzing the Risk involved in a transaction is important to decide whether to proceed with the transaction or not. Till now, Risk has been discussed extensively in the area of Investment, Finance, Health, Environment, daily life activities and Engineering. All these areas have different interpretations of Risk, which is not suitable to apply to a transaction in the area of Computer Science. In this paper we focus on defining Risk in a decentralized transaction in e-commerce.

Idham dan Ali Ghufron Mukti

Implementation of decentralized drug policy brings an impact in the form of finance mechanism changes. Before decentralization, drug budget was calculated by the amount of resident and indigent resident percentage. After decentralization, the budget is specified by each regional government according to needs and existing health problems. This change leads to problems of allocation and distribution especially in some areas where Original Earnings of Area (PAD) is relatively small. The allocation is strongly influenced by the amount of Common Allocation Fund (DAU) and the drug manager ability in the area to manage the fund of drugs as efficient and effective as possible to assure the availability and sustainability of health service. The aim of the study was to calculate the adequacy rate of drug cost before and after decentralization and to determine the influence of decentralization itself toward the adequacy of drug cost in the area.\nA case study was conducted using quantitative data and the result was analyzed with regard to drug cost adequacy. The study began with calculating indicator of drug management and drug cost requirement on the therapy of top 10 diseases using morbidity method during 1999-2002. The result was analyzed with ABC analysis and compared to realization of drug cost on the same periode and interpreted to assess the drug cost adequacy before and after decentralization.\nThe result showed that the average of ability on the drugs cost procurement based on comsumtion method to fullfill drug cost requirement based on morbidity method before decentralization was 31,33%, after decentralization increased to 78,51%. And then the average of ability on the drugs cost based on comsumtion method to fullfill drug cost requirement based on morbidity method before decentralization was 15,14%, after decentralization increased to 60,67%. Nevertheless, the increase of fund adequacy and drug cost rate was not significant (p>0,05) between before and after decentralization. It was concluded that although the adequacy rate of drugs cost and fund has increased significantly after decentralization, it was not able to fulfill the requirement up to 100%. In other words, decentralization has not influenced the cost adequacy rate of primary health care drugs in the area.\n\nKeywords: availability –adequacy –decentralization –cost of drugs.

Grzegorz Bywalec

In the literature on the subject of economy there are three functions of public finance
\ndescribed: stabilazing, redistributing and allocating. Effectiveness of realization of the abovementioned
\nfunctions depends to a large extent on the political system of a given country,
\nespecially on the degree to which it is decentralized. In the article the author embarks on an
\nattempt to identify the advantages and disadvantages of decentralization of particular public
\nfinance functions and in effect to show which of the functions can be more effectively realized
\nby the central authorities and which of them can be decentralized that is transfered to the
\nlocal authorities.

Nelson Chalfun

O trabalho discute, do ponto de vista economico, as vantagens e desvantagens que diferentes graus de centralizacao/descentralizacao fiscal e tributaria apresentam para um crescimento economico equilibrado. Para tanto, sao apresentadas as posicoes defendidas pelos centralistas e descentralistas, autores que, baseados nos resultados de suas pesquisas, tendem a se aproximar de um ou de outro polo, no continuum do sistema politico federalista, os primeiros sustentando a concentracao do poder de tributar e de gastar nas maos do governo central, e os ultimos defendendo a devolucao desses poderes ao nivel de governo o mais distante possivel do centro. O trabalho comeca apresentando as relacoes entre o Federalismo e as estruturas tributaria e fiscal; em seguida coloca a polemica entre as duas correntes mencionadas, concluindo com a indicacao dos temas de uma agenda de pesquisa voltada para o estabelecimento de uma estrutura fiscal e tributaria adequada aos paises em desenvolvimento, uma vez que muito da literatura sobre o tema esta voltada para os problemas dos paises desenvolvidos.Abstract This paper provides a discussion, in economic grounds, of the advantages and disadvantages that different degrees of fiscal and tax centralization/decentralization pose towards achieving a balanced economic growth. Accordingly, it introduces arguments and contentions of both centralist and decentralist authors. Based on their research outcomes they reveal a tendency towards a polarized position within the continuum of the political system of federalism. Whereas the former group sustains the concentration of taxation and spending powers at the federal level, the latter advocates the devolution of such powers to the level of government the most afar from the center. The paper starts presenting the relationships between Federalism and fiscal and tax structures; then it analyses the arguments posed by members of the two streams of thought and concludes proposing specific themes to compose a discussion agenda devised towards the institution of fiscal and tax structures specifically designed to fulfill particular characteristics of developing countries, given that most of the literature is based on the experience of developed countries. Key words: Public goods. Public finance. State and local taxation. State and local budget and expenditures. Intergovernmental relations. Federalism

Yukio Kawakami, Seiichi Kagaya

The Nakasone political power modeled on the policy of Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the United States, and promoted deregulation, privatization and the administrative reform. To revitalize Tokyo when “The Fourth Comprehensive National Development Plan” was formulated in 1987, spatial policy such as “Control the Metropolitan Areas and Promote Local Areas” until that time was changed. The Nakasone policy has changed gradually into the measure that expanded the investment in public works from the fiscal reconstruction in the background of the asset-inflated economy.In the post Nakasone political power after the burst of the economic bubble, it was in the state of straying to alternate retrenched finance and measures to boost the economy. It was “Basic Plan for the Public Investment” in 1990 to influence the investment in the public works expansion.The Hashimoto political power enacted the Fiscal Structure Reform Law in 1997. But the austerity would be stopped before long so that the business, which just began to recover, worsened. That political power changed measures again, boost the economy and tax reduction were executed. “Grand Design for the 21st Century” (21GD) as the fifth comprehensive national development plan was formulated in 1998 under that circumstances.The numerical target was almost none at all in the 21GD though that plan had aimed at different one from the former development plans. Therefore it came to plan the long & large bridge project easily because of no brake of the fiscal framework. Moreover, the concept “National Axis Zone” is not supported. However, it was appreciable to have induced trends of today's urban renewal, consolidation of municipalities, etc.The environment that surrounds spatial planning like the movement of restructuring of government ministries and agencies and decentralization, etc. changed greatly after 21GD. The symbols of a conventional spatial policy like New Industrial City Construction Law, Special Measures Law of Industrial Development, etc. were abolished as an epoch event. On the other hand, new legislation of an individual field like the Infrastructure Maintenance Emphasis Plan Law and the Urban Renewal Law, etc. continues.These series of trends are new currents that deny the sense of comprehensiveness, character of a long term, and the feature of regionalism that the spatial planning has possessed up to now. The problem is how to reform the spatial planning system from now on.JEL classification : N95, O21, R53, R58

Jianfeng Wang

The world is experiencing dramatic fiscal reconstruction in the socialist and (former) socialist countries and of continuing and fascinating evolution of government structure elsewhere. Being one of the fastest growing economies over the past nearly three decades, China seems deeply embracing this global mantra of power devolution in her effort to energize local economy that was suffocated in the highly constricted state-planning system. The literature of the Chinese central-local studies suggests that fiscal decentralization from the central government to provincial governments is a key institutional factor to explain Chinese economic success. However, the literature misses various lower levels of government in China. Has the fiscal power been eventually trickled down to them? This is the question addressed in this project. This project makes several contributions to the thriving Chinese central-local study. It brings back the missing local governments in the intergovernmental debate. By linking various local governments with the national government, the findings in this project help to draw a more comprehensive and holistic picture of the intergovernmental fiscal relations in China. Such a study on the evolution of fiscal structure among local governments also adds knowledge to understand the broad economic and administrative transformation in contemporary China. Using the latest datasets of public finance, this project performs a series of statistical analysis to understand if fiscal decentralization has taken place to each level of Chineselocal governments in the reform era. This project also tests the factors that have been widely identified in the classical welfare theory as explanative factors for the fiscal arrangement at different levels of local government. This project finds out that fiscal decentralization fails to capture the main trend of the intergovernmental fiscal relations at various Chinese local governments. Instead, there has been a rather consistent pattern of fiscal centralization across those local governments during the 1990s and the early 2000s.

Rocco Macchiavello

No abstract is available for this record.