Given many potential obstacles, what types of strategic plans and measures for climate protection and/or energy sustainability are more likely than others to be adopted by cities? What are the key internal and external obstacles to adopting and implementing these plans and measures? Based on data obtained from a survey conducted from 2010 to 2011 and other sources, this paper develops a framework derived from political contracting theory and strategic orientation literature to examine how public management obstacles, socio-economic factors, and political factors influence a city's likelihood of having strategic energy sustainability plans and measures in place. Moreover, this paper finds that many California cities remain reluctant to require residents and businesses to comply with more challenging sustainability measures, such as smart-growth land-use practices, and that those cities with a strategic energy sustainability plan already in place tend to be more willing to adopt smart-growth land-use measures.
After the restoration of the democracy in Nepal, the demand for spending up decentralization process has been gained ground. As a result of increasingly assertive role of stakeholders, the enactment of local self-governance Act (LSGA), 1999 in line with 9th plan, objective had been achieved providing the base for further promotion of decentralization framework in the country. Municipal financing is new concept in Nepal. Municipal financing indicates the study of various sources of revenue (both internal and external) and their collection, allocation, mobilization and utilization of those resource in such a manner that ultimate municipal goal can be achieved through it. For sustainable development effort conducted by local government to realized revenue and evaluation such performance was done through field surveys and on the basis of existing available data and reports. Simple tabular presentation percentage tools is used to analyzed data and found PSMC is not success to collect sufficient tax revenue as its possibilities. Janapriya Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Vol. 2, No.1 (December 2013), page: 51-60
The article is aimed at determining the major problems in the financing of education sphere in the current context of the reform of decentralization of power in Ukraine and developing directions for solving them. The main directions and results of educational reform have been analyzed, and the ranking of Ukraine according to the Global Competitiveness Index has been defined. The positive points of the decentralization of education have been noted. The expenditure of the budget of Ukraine have been analyzed and the proportion of expenditure on education has been determined as to the total budget expenditure. Along with this, the main circle of problems of the budget provision for the education sector has been outlined. It has been proposed: to increase the efficiency of allocation of budgetary means at all levels of the budget system; to enhance the possibilities of educational institutions to attract additional financial resources through educational innovation, and to expand the list of paid services provided by such institutions; to decentralize education, taking into account the characteristics of development of regions, their productive potential, the demographic situation, and the interests of the territorial communities.
David Bartolini, Agnese Sacchi, Simone Salotti, Raffaella Santolini
The virtues of fiscal decentralization are usually assessed against the provision of local public goods; little is said about its impact on public finances. There is a growing concern that public finances may be negatively affected when spending and taxing powers are delegated to subnational tiers of government, especially under adverse financial conditions. Our work proves that these concerns are unfounded. The empirical investigation on 19 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries over the period 1980–2010 shows that the budget balances of central and local governments do not get worse with fiscal decentralization. Moreover, during banking crises expenditure decentralization seems to be beneficial, as the central government can easily shift resources from intergovernmental grants to financing public policies necessary to tackle the crisis. In turn, more subnational tax autonomy would improve the budget of all tiers of government, suggesting that more ‘effective’ tax decentralization increases fiscal discipline also in times of financial distress. (JEL codes: H60, H70 and G01).
This paper entitled "Public expenditure on health in local budgets" aims analysing and deepening major spending categories that public authorities finance at local level, namely health expenditure. In the first part of the article we have specified the content and role of this category of expenditure in local budgets and also made some feedback on decentralization in health. In the second part of the work, based on data available in Statistical Yearbook of Romania, we have carried out an analysis of the dynamics of health spending from local budgets to emphasize their place and role in the health care expenses. The research carried out follows that the evolution and structure of health expenditure financed from local budgets is determined, along with the legislative framework in the field, by several variables that differ from one territorial administrative unit to another: the existence of sanitary units, their type, the involving of local public authorities in their development and modernization, the number and the social structure of the population. The research shows that over the period 1993-2015, the dynamics of the share of health spending in total expenditures of local budgets is sinusoidal, with a minimum threshold in 2000 of only 0.3%.Journal: The USV Annals of Economics and Public Administration
Global Health Care Issues
Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth
Sustainable Development and Environmental Management
Fiscal decentralization is seen as part of a reform agenda in developing countries to strengthen regional and local governments. It is believed that it improves the efficiency of public service delivery through preference matching and allocation efficiency. In light of this, this study was conducted to assess the practices of Woreda level fiscal decentralization in Addis Ababa City Government. In doing this study, explanatory mixed method research design was followed. Subjects of the study were government officials working in selected Woredas and sub-cities of Addis Ababa city. In the study, multi-stage sampling technique was used to select representative respondents. To this effect, one hundred ninety-two participants were selected using multi-stage sampling technique. Besides, sub-city and Woreda Finance and Economic Development Bureaus officials were purposely selected to conduct key informant interviews. The data gathering instruments were questionnaire, key informant interviews, and document analysis. The study followed statistical tests to test the research hypotheses. It applied Kruskal Wallis test of significance. The study involved strict respect for informed consent, voluntary participation, and confidentiality. The findings of the statistics tests indicates that respondents' responses concerning autonomy of Woredas in planning and budgeting, revenue generation and retention, expenditure assignments were significantly different. This implies that there is absence of uniformity in the practices of these aspects of fiscal decentralization in the city. On the contrary, the respondents' response concerning the functionalities of institutional and legal frameworks, inter-governmental fiscal relations, challenges, and constraints of fiscal decentralization, were not significantly different. In general, the practice of fiscal decentralization in the city was limited as existing institutional and legal frameworks were in short of clarity and uniformity. Respondents stated that Woreda administrations had weak revenue base, and need clear planning and budgeting, and expenditure assignment autonomy. Based on the findings of the study, the research hence recommended that existing institutional and legal frameworks should be structured in the way that it enables Woreda administrations to generate and utilize sufficient revenues, plan and budget their own activities, have clear autonomy of expenditure assignments. Inter-governmental fiscal relations should also be planned to reduce the vertical imbalances observed at Woreda Administration level.
Taxes on real property have been identified as a source of income whose potential is currently underused by many countries. Indonesia has recently decentralized the property tax to the local level, but has this led to a better use of the tax potential from this source? A look at revenue figures provided by the Indonesian Ministry of Finance suggests that reforms may have boosted tax collection at an aggregate level. However, closer scrutiny of seven local cases reveals that local governments are far from tapping the full potential of the property tax. Most of them are struggling with deficient data, low public acceptance of the tax and huge amounts of tax liabilities. in addition, local governments shy away from the political costs associated with more active revenue mobilization.
This conceptual research reflects the understanding of the wider and more coherent use of crypto-currencies and Blockchain' algorithms for the security and equity of operations. This is especially important for the transactions between the collective actors on different hierarchical positions, e.g., the State and private companies or associations, or individuals. The fog computing' hardware and software are helpful for the aims of improving taxation and ensuring reliability of any transactions. The neuron technologies provide creating and developing a multi-criteria assessment of assets or actions, which represent more correct system of affective and socially acceptable evaluations, than it can be calculated on the basis of the cognitive judgments. The ability to provide a high level of information security through systems like Etherium allows of building a reliable and transparent system of taxation and of regulation of all interactions between social, economic and political agents, including the financial and non-financial measurements.
The debates on the devolution of powers to the panchayats since the last two decades received enormous attention because of the increasing role played by these institutions in planning and implementation of the development programmes in rural India. But it is observed that devolution agenda including the agenda of fiscal devolution and tax decentralization has not been taken up sincerely in many states including the states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Based on the review of secondary data, the present article critically examines the status of the fiscal devolution to the panchayats in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. This article argues that both the states need to strengthen the own revenue of panchayats based on the recommendations of the Finance Commissions of the respective states. In this context, the process of tax decentralization and principles of sharing the state taxes should receive paramount importance.
China economic development has entered a new normal. Consumption plays a more and more important role in promoting economy. Based on the empirical statistics, we adopted the VEC model to analyze the dynamic linkages and influences between public expenditure and consumption. The conclusion is there are different impacts between central and local public expenditure, and in the long run, only the latter has a strongly positive effect on consumption. So trying to coordinate the relationship between central and local finance is of vital importance under the background of economic transition.
This article concerns capital taxation and public good provision in a two-layer fiscal union where the federal government uses lump-sum transfers to redistribute resources between two local jurisdictions, and where each local government uses a capital tax and a lump-sum tax to finance the provision of a local public good. The novelty is to allow for simultaneous horizontal and decentralized leadership (double leadership) which means that one of the local governments is able to exercise Stackelberg leadership both vis-a-vis the other local government and vis-a-vis the federal government. Among the results it is shown that the capital tax becomes redundant as a policy instrument for the double leader if the other state government acts as a decentralized leader vis-a-vis the federal government. If, instead, the other state government does not exercise leadership vis-a-vis the federal government then the double leader will implement a capital tax which is allocatively efficient from the perspective of the fiscal union as a whole. It is also shown that double leadership exacerbates the under-taxation inefficiency that earlier research has shown exists in a fiscal union with decentralized leadership.
It is undeniably that the fiscal autonomy of local government authorities constitutes a critical component of any financial decentralization in both developed and developing countries.It gives local government authorities freedom to impose taxes, generate revenue within their areas, allocate their financial and material resources, determine and authorize their annual budgets without external motivate.The fiscal component of local governments in Tanzania Mainland is mannered by the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, 1977 and The Local Government Finances Act, 1982.Despite such recognition, powers of local government authorities in relation to local government finance are still, limited by central government.These limitations do not only deny local governments requisite powers to adequately raise revenue from their own sources and borrowings but also inhibit their ability to determine and approve such annual budgets.
Sustainable and inclusive growth in emerging Asian economies requires continued high levels of public sector investment in areas such as infrastructure, education, health, and social services. These responsibilities, especially with regard to infrastructure investment, need to be devolved increasingly to the regional government level. However, growth of sources of revenue and financing for local governments has not necessarily kept pace, forcing them, in some cases, to increase borrowing or cut spending below needed levels. This chapter reviews alternative models of the relationship between central and local governments, and provides an overview and assessment of different financing mechanisms for local governments, including tax revenues, central government transfers, bank loans, and bond issuance, with a focus on the context of emerging Asian economies. The chapter also reviews financing mechanisms for local governments and mechanisms for maintaining fiscal stability and sustainability at both the central and local government levels. Based upon the evidence on the decentralization process in Asia, it proposes some policy implications for improving central–local government relations and fiscal sustainability.
Fiscal decentralization demand the regions to improve their creativity in collecting funds for financing local expenditures according to their needs (self-financing). The objective of this paper is to identify problems and challenges in enhancing local own-revenues faced by the local governments. This research used the qualitative method by comparing two case studies on the enhancement of local own-revenues. Both the local governments of A and B face problems in optimizing local ownrevenues. the enhancement of local own-revenues is faced with two main challenges. For undeveloped regions, the challenge is the making of an urban-biased policy and for regions with urban characteristics the challenge is the emergence of urban problems due to high business opportunities in the urban regions. Another challenge faced by every local government is dependency on the sector of local taxes as the sector with large contribution to local own-revenues.
Income and property taxation are among the most prevalent policy instruments to finance local expenditure in countries with a high degree of decentralization. However, little is known about their relative efficiency and redistributive properties. This paper compares both tax instruments within the same framework and investigates their relative attractiveness to finance local expenditure. It further allows for inter-municipal spillovers and rivalry in the consumption of the publicly provided good. The analytical model identifies the different inefficiencies in both tax regimes which include intra- and inter-municipal free-riding. In a numerical illustration, the model is solved for the resulting equilibria. This allows to quantify the gross welfare loss from decentralization and also reveals a decomposition of the welfare loss into its components.
Fiscal decentralization has been established in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but crises emerge at the local government level due to remaining problems of the fiscal administration system of tax allocation and the impact of replacing the business tax with a value added tax. The PRC taxation system requires readjustment and local governments have begun to focus on innovative financing models. The main path to stable and sustainable government finances is to maintain the general public budget and the government fund budget. The present chapter shows that use of innovative fundraising and financing channels will lead to the upgrading of local government infrastructure and public services. Suggestions for enhancing local government fiscal stability and sustainability include: reducing the fiscal burden at the local level by standardizing and legalizing outlay establishing a modern taxation system; establishing a standardized and predictable transfer payment system by introducing block transfer payments and prioritized transfer payments as a basis for a stable growth mechanism for general transfer payments; promoting public–private partnership legislation to encourage participation of social capital and maximize the multiplier effect of public expenditure; and improving the mid-term budget and debt-annexed budget and establishing a government planning mechanism for investment and debt financing of major infrastructure construction projects.
Despite a world awash with liquidity, \n large infrastructure supply gaps exist across developing and \n emerging markets. Infrastructure has been largely \n decentralized to subnational governments in many countries, \n and many policymakers are keenly interested in developing \n subnational bond markets to give subnational governments \n access to private financing for infrastructure. Despite \n this, the transaction costs of bond issuance are still \n prohibitive for many subnational governments to access \n financing. Pooled financing, through regional infrastructure \n funds, municipal funds, or bond banks, has become a \n sought-after solution for helping subnational governments \n access private financing for infrastructure. In the United \n States, municipal bond banks that were established since the \n 1970s have become a cost-effective and stable model for \n expanding subnational financing for many small \n municipalities, while maintaining strong credit ratings with \n virtually no defaults from sub-borrowers. The municipal bond \n banks have been successful in lowering financing costs for \n many small, unrated local governments, with loan sizes as \n low as less than $50,000. This paper examines the policies \n and structures that have made pooled financing successful in \n the United States, including regulatory frameworks, \n governance and managerial systems, the role of project \n appraisal, operations and pricing, and managing the default \n risks of borrowers. The paper also explores broader lessons \n for developing countries that are interested in establishing \n pooled financing for subnational infrastructure.
Jan 1, 2017·Proceedings of the International Conference on Administrative Science, Policy and Governance Studies (ICAS-PGS 2017) and the International Conference on Business Administration and Policy (ICBAP 2017)
Whether fiscal decentralization is good for reducing communal conflict is still debatable. This study examines the linkage between fiscal decentralization and communal conflict in Indonesia, administrative decentralization, and political decentralization is examined as well. Data come from the Village National Census (Podes) 2008-2014 (N=234,717). Results of twolevel logit regression show that fiscal decentralization not significantly associated with reducing communal conflict. The findings suggest that decentralization work for reducing communal conflict through better capacity of local bureaucrats rather than through financing capacity in delivering public services and the enhanced opportunities for channeling citizen participation in direct political participation.
Implementation of regional autonomy as the government's efforts for the welfare society in accordance with the characteristic of each region. Implementation of the fiscal decentralization recurring phenomenon is the phenomenon of flypaper effect. Flypaper effect occurs when the local government responded to the regional expenditure larger than the central government transfer revenue. The purpose of research is to prove the phenomenon of flypaper in East Java Province period 2011-2015. This research uses quantitative analysis with a population of 29 districts and 9 cities in East Java province. Data were analyzed using panel data regression analysis with Eviews statistical test equipment. The result showed that regional revenue positively affects regional expenditure, general allocation fund positively affects regional expenditure, financing budget surplus positively affects regional expenditure, regional revenue positively effect on growth, positive effect on the regional expenditure growth at district/city in East Java Province. The result of the comparison coefficient general allocation of funds and region revenue indicate there has been a flypaper effect on region expenditure districts/cities in East Java Province period [2011][2012][2013][2014][2015]
The chapter examines the critical role of good governanceGovernance and robust financial management in building stable democratic states in the Pacific Islands. It explores the role of ICTs in public financial managementPublic financial management (PFM) as a means to this end and identifies some of the factors that lead to the success or failure of e-government initiatives in this core government activity. The chapter outlines the dominant PFM reform agendas in the Pacific, including those of the World BankWorld Bank and the IMF, which have been endorsed by the Pacific Islands ForumPacific Islands Forum Economic Ministers Meeting, and the role of PFM systems and effective audit systems in combating corruptionCorruption . The need for capacity buildingCapacity building and leadershipLeadership in embedding public financial management reforms are discussed and the chapter concludes with a discussion of some issues emerging from the chapter: the value of centralized versus decentralized systems and the tension between development assistance and sovereignty. The chapter argues that ownership of the public financePublic finance reform agenda by Pacific governments and a commitment to good governance is essential for sustainable PFM reforms in the region and for development.
Objectives: This study is aimed at analyzing various facets of Fiscal Federalism and its impact on the growth of states in India. Methods/Analysis: The Study proposes a model to test the impact of autonomy and hard budget constraints, two important features of decentralization, on the economies of the states. The model has been analyzed using the Fixed Effects Least Squares method for panel data using EViews. Findings: The results point out quite a few aspects of the impact of fiscal federalism on Indian states. The paper concludes by giving possible reasons for the negative relation between autonomy with growth and the positive relation between central grants with growth. The fact that the OwnTax ratio is negatively related to the GSDP growth rate shows that the level of autonomy of a state is negatively related to the growth of the state. The study also revealed a high dependence of the states on the grants and tax sharing mechanisms for growth. It was found that the central intervention in the states’ economy was positively related to their growth, which points to soft budget constraints on the states which depend highly on the central government to finance their spending. The overall level of decentralization was also found to be quite poor, though the relationship is not very economically significant. Applications/Improvement: The Study highlights that trade-off between the autonomy and budget constraint aspects of fiscal federalism needs to be a major concern and work area for policy makers in India.Keywords: Economic Growth, Fiscal Federalism, Tax
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionThe existing literature have concluded that foreign resources have played significant role in raising the pace of economic development in developing countries. Most of the developing countries have been facing shortage of resources failing to meet the rising demand of capital over time. In order to overcome this problem these countries have been receiving heavy doses of external resources in the form of loans and grants from developed countries and international financial institutions World Bank, IMF and Asian Development Bank. The developing countries depend on foreign aid due to the desire of achieving rapid pace of economic development in the shortest period of time. Furthermore, for bridging their saving investment gap and export import gap these countries are forced to receive foreign aid from foreign sources. On the other side, developed countries provide loans and foreign assistance to developing countries keeping in view that developing countries cannot borrow from commercial sources due to their limited debt servicing capacity.Oates (1972) stressed that decentralization is one of the important factors which helps the donor countries in transferring resources because the government officials of recipient countries can make correct and appropriate decisions regarding the development projects as decentralization helps in bringing government and people closer. There are two serious problems which may come up in this regard. Firstly, it is very difficult to know about the real needs of the society. Secondly, allocation of the resources under political pressure to meet these requirements is not an easy task.The resource allocation in developing countries remained controversial due to the political pressure and conditions attached to foreign aid. The need for decentralization, comes up because of the existence of gap between spending needs and availability of revenue. There are three levels of government working in Pakistan and the allocation and distribution between them remained under debate. There exists a well-defined process through which resources are redistributed to provincial government by the federal government through National Finance Commission (NFC).The introduction of new formula in 2009 for the share of all provinces in the dividable pool has altered significantly. In the 1990 the Punjab's share was 57.87 according to NFC award based on the population, while there was an insignificant decline observed in 2006. There is decline in the share of Punjab recorded from 57.37 percent in 2006 to 51.74 percent in 2009. The share of Sindh has gone up from 23.71 percent in 2006 to 24.55 percent in 2009. The share of KPK has gone up from 13.82 percent in 2006 to 14.62 percent in 2009. The Baluchistan's share has increased to 9.09 percent on the basis of the revised formula.Several studies have analyzed the effect of foreign aid, fiscal decentralization on economic growth but there is no consensus among the researchers regarding the role of decentralization in economic growth.Easterly (2003) concluded that corrupt institutions having weak policies had adverse impact on foreign aid in achieving its desired objectives. Morrissey (2006) stressed that private investment has appeared to be inversely related to imports and directly related to foreign aid. Aurangzeb (2010) failed to find the evidence related to the impact of foreign aid on economic growth in Pakistan. Javid (2011) concluded that foreign aid may have positive effect on economic growth in Pakistan only in the presence of sound economic policies. The present study is highly important as the results of this study would help the policy makers to formulate and implement better policies consistent with the economic and political conditions prevailing in Pakistan.The rest of the study is organized as follows. Section-II presents theoretical framework. Model specification and interpretation of results are presented in Section-III. …