Fiscal decentralization aims to improve regional finance independency and reduce the fiscal dependency of central government. However, in practice, there are many areas that still rely on the assistance central finance for their regional development. This research aims to discuss the development of regional finance independency and analyze the influence of regional finance independency on economic growth in Banten Province. This research uses descriptive method and panel data on 6 (six) regencies and cities in Banten Province at 2001-2011. The results showed the significantly positive effect of regional finance independency on economic growth and significantly negative effect of balance fund’s ratio on economic growth. Key words: local revenue, economic growth, panel data
Using soft budget theory to explore the formation mechanism and the deep institutional incentive of the local financing platform debt expansion from the perspective of fiscal / financial decentralization, construct theoretical framework which explain the expansion of local debt financing platform and conduct an empirical test, the results showed that the higher the degree of fiscal decentralization, fiscal autonomy as a soft constraint body of local government the stronger, local financing platform debt scale is greater; the higher the degree of financial decentralization, local government and financial institutions have the higher autonomy with respect to the central, local financing platform debt scale is bigger; financial synergy degree is stronger, local government financial mutual supervision prompted the local government debt more transparency, local debt financing platform size is smaller.
PETER MWIATHI SILAS, Nelson Wawire, Perez Ayieko Onono-Okelo
The Kenya government has instituted fiscal decentralization over the years to promote social economic development, reduce poverty and income inequality and ensure balanced regional development. Despite these efforts, poverty levels have remained high in Kenya. The literature on the relationship between fiscal decentralization and poverty has been rather inconclusive about the effects of fiscal decentralization on poverty. The main objective of this paper was to analyse the effects of fiscal decentralization on poverty in Kenya. Using cross-county panel data from 2002 – 2014 and published data from government agencies, UNDP reports and World Bank reports, the paper estimated various empirical models to analyse the effects intergovernmental transfers, sub-national own-source revenue and county expenditure on poverty in Kenya. The study established that the effect of fiscal decentralization on poverty depends on the nature of decentralization and the extent of fiscal decentralization as well as the county specifics. The paper therefore, recommends the need for for county governments to have adequate own-source revenue to finance their expenditure as opposed to relying on intergovernmental transfers from national government.
Rents from natural resources can alter the relationship between central and local governments by providing a new source of government financing. We develop a model to explore the relationship between fiscal decentralization and resource abundance. Our model indicates that natural resource rents can detach central government expenditures from the tax base so that the central government can spend more to persuade a fractious periphery to remain under central government control. Thus, other things being equal, higher natural resource rents can result in less decentralized government expenditures. We empirically explore the relationship between fiscal decentralization and natural resource rents using a panel of 60 countries over the past 40 years. Empirical results support our economic model: A 1% increase in natural resource rents as a fraction of gross domestic product results in government expenditures that are 0.53% less decentralized.
Dana Országhová, RadomÃÂra Hornyák Gregáňová, Viera Papcunová
Changes in the socio-economic conditions of countries initiate modifications in the management of its economic and social processes, which are also followed by conversions in the public administration. At the same time, they are also looking for the concepts of rational organization and effective management of the public administration. The public administration of the Slovak Republic is created by local self-government and regional selfgovernment. Municipalities represent the local self-government bodies. The effective conditions of the municipalities are creating the effective setting of its financing. Until 2004 the financing of municipalities was determined annually by the state budget act and for the municipalities distributed from the state budget a share of the tax of personal income, which consisted of three taxes: tax of personal income, tax of the corporation income and road tax. In 2005 the fiscal decentralization took place in Slovakia as a part of the consolidation of public finances, resulting in a new way of financing municipalities. The basis of the new financing system of municipalities was to determine the tax of personal income as a single share tax, in particular, because the dynamics of the income of this tax was expected to grow even in the medium term. The objective of the paper is to evaluate changes and trends in the financial management of municipalities based on selected fiscal indicators within the period 1993 -2015.
Social policy scholars often take the view that welfare states can be classified into different types based on distinct political philosophies and stable institutional features. However, it is a challenge to fit China squarely into any existing taxonomy. Using the volatile growth of educational expenditure in recent years as an example, this paper contends that China’s social policy in general, educational policy, in particular, has not evolved into a stable model. Much of the irregularity stems from the tension between centralized mandates and decentralized financing, often leading to underfunded social programs. In response, the central government relies on top-down mobilization to achieve unfunded or underfunded policy mandates. Mobilization, however, cannot last long as it stresses and strains local governments. The alternation between mobilization and post-mobilization accounts for the great irregularity in educational financing and poses a serious challenge for China’s welfare state building. There is a need to replace mobilization with a more regularized, sustainable and equitable financing mechanism for education and other social programs.
This chapter examines the fiscal structure of the Brazilian from 1822 to 1930 to ask how the government proposed to pay for the public goods mandated in its political documents. It shows that Brazil established a century-long practice of relying on indirect taxes on the circulation of goods and services and on wealth transfers to pay for public goods. This reliance on indirect taxes increased the cost of goods and services, while their regressive nature placed the greatest fiscal burden on those with the least. Moreover, Brazil’s fiscal structure disproportionately channeled public finance to the national government, and then favored the state government, depriving municipalities of resources necessary to fulfill their extensive mandate. Finally, because taxes and fees on the local economy financed local government, the ability to investment in the quality of life to raise standards of living varied from community to community. The institutional shift from highly centralized empire when municipalities had no fiscal autonomy (1822-1930) to decentralized republic when municipalities had nearly complete autonomy (1890-1930) did not alter these fundamental characteristics. The chapter details the sources and evolution of revenue streams for the seven municipalities, demonstrating their inadequacy to satisfy local requirements of public goods investments.
The subject of research in this paper is the institute of public loan as an instrument for financing public needs of municipalities - cities and local selfgovernments. The paper will highlight the causes of the growing importance of the public debt instrument at the local level, as a phenomenon that follows the tendency of global affirmation of the idea of fiscal decentralization. It will also point out the elements of the legitimacy of rational use of public loans, as well as the nature, scope and consequences of different types of restrictions on local borrowing at global and domestic level.
The study examined the relationship between fiscal decentralization and health service delivery in Itojo sub-county. It was guided by the objective which were; to find out the extent to which citizens’ participation in planning and budgeting influence health services delivery in Itojo sub-county in Ntungamo District, to analyse how monitoring and evaluation of health care services affect health service delivery in Itojo sub-county in Ntungamo District and to identify the factors that constrain fiscal decentralization and health service delivery in Itojo sub county. The study used a case study design which and incorporated both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The sample for this study was 136 respondents and these were selected by use of purposive sampling. The study used questionnaires, interview guide and documentary review in gathering data for the study. Data analysis was done using SPSS which were used to generate frequency and percentages. From the findings, it was revealed that all decisions regarding health care services delivery are fully decentralized for effective delivery; decentralized planning has improved equitable health service delivery. Furthermore, it was revealed that monitoring is a key aspect of resource utilization for health service delivery. Further findings also revealed that feedback on the performance of the health sector is disseminated to technical staff at the local government level and this enhances health service delivery. It was pointed out that one of the most daunting challenges facing fiscal decentralization of health services in Uganda derives from the concerns relating to accountability, transparency, auditing and institutional corruption within both central and sub-national governments. From the findings corruption causes delays in implementation of health programmes thus ineffective healthcare service delivery. It was thus concluded that citizens’ participation in planning and budgeting influences health service delivery. The findings indicated that monitoring and evaluation greatly affect health service delivery. This implied that an increase in monitoring and evaluation of health services has positively influence on health service delivery. The study thus recommended that there is need for an effective and harmonized decentralized planning and budgeting processes at all levels in Uganda. There should be an effective budget committee in place in each of the districts to over-see resource mobilization and allocation of finance. Routine monitoring, supervision and evaluation of performance should be encouraged so that errors and misappropriations are reduced or eliminated in order to enhance effective health service delivery.
This study examines the relationship between decentralization, democratic governance, and the working of local self-government institutions in India. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments established Panchayats and Municipalities as constitutionally recognized bodies of grassroots governance, intended to promote participation, accountability, and locally responsive development. However, the quality of decentralization continues to vary because the transfer of authority, finance, and personnel remains uneven across states. The study adopts a descriptive and analytical design to assess how local self-government influences democratic participation, administrative responsiveness, and service satisfaction. For academic demonstration, a structured survey framework using a sample of 63 respondents was prepared, including elected representatives, officials, and citizens. Three dimensions were examined: the link between citizen participation and accountability, the relationship between fiscal decentralization and service delivery satisfaction, and differences in perceptions of responsiveness among stakeholder groups. The analysis applies Chi-square, Spearman rank correlation, one-way ANOVA, and multiple regression to interpret the data. The results indicate that decentralization improves democratic governance when it is accompanied by meaningful devolution, transparent institutions, trained local leadership, and active community engagement. The study concludes that local self-government can become a more effective instrument of inclusive development when constitutional design is supported by administrative capacity, fiscal autonomy, and regular citizen oversight.
Combining the location characteristics of provincial capitals and municipalities, from the perspective of fiscal financial decentralization system, the different expansion of local debt financing platform is studied to find out that the degree of financial fiscal decentralization is the main institutional incentives of local financing platform debt expansion difference, and Shanghai and Hangzhou have obvious location advantages. The advantages of these factors may include the development of the financial industry, the development of the Internet and other factors.
Deconcentration is simply defined as the delegation of administrative authorities of the central government to the lower level of governments along with the transfer of funds to finance the implementation of the authorities. Deconcentration, in the perspective of public administration, is the transfer of administrative responsibility for specified functions to lower levels within the central government bureaucracy, generally on some spatial basis (Ferguson and Chandrasekharan, 2004). The policy and important decision still lays on the central government and the lower governments or units are merely the implementer of the policy and decision. The practice of the deconcentration in Indonesia has obviously been implementing since the independence of the country with some dynamism and adjustments particularly with the national interest, strategies, economic or even politic. The political reform of Indonesia in the year of 1998 is mainly generated by the demands of some provinces and regions to separate from the country for instance those of demands from Aceh, Papua and Maluku. To respond the demands, central government issued decentralization law notably by the Law No.22/1999 which the revision to the previous Law No.5/1974.
In this research, the index of all Croatian cities’ tax autonomy (128) in the 2002-2016 period was calculated. The aim of this research is to show how many Croatian cities control their tax revenues. It is also the goal to determine whether cities have the ability to independently finance local public services to citizens and entrepreneurs. The OECD methodology in the classification of tax revenues was used. The results of the analysis showed that Croatian cities had a relatively low level of tax autonomy, except in the period from 2010 to 2014, when the index of tax autonomy was above 54, while in 2016 it amounted to 41.36. The research results showed that only a small number of cities-without the aid of state government grants-can finance their existing level of public services for residents and entrepreneurs and manage their development. This is an important conclusion in considering the future role of cities in taking over new public functions and increasing the decentralization of public administration and territorial organization of the state.
In highly decentralized countries the subnational dimension of economic developments acquires particular relevance, given the existence of potential spillover effects across jurisdictions or the existence of asymmetric impacts of national-wide macroeconomic shocks. At the same time, though, the analysis of sub-national macroeconomic and public finance short-term developments tend to be restricted in many countries due to data limitations. Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the available data for monitoring macroeconomic and public finance developments at the regional level in Spain, and to present some examples of its practical use in real time. After a thoroughly review of the publicly available information, we identify two key informational gaps in this area of conjunctural analysis, namely: (i) the lack of homogeneous and official quarterly measures of aggregate regional economic activity (in particular, real GDP), and (ii) the limited sample size of time series pertaining to government budgetary developments at the regional level.
Decentralization is widely recognized to improve sustainable development through promoting good governance. However, like many African countries, Ethiopia has faced a number of challenges in good governance building process. Thus, this research focuses on assessing the role of decentralization in promoting good governance in Wolaita and Dawuro Zones. The study employed descriptive research design to describe the practices of decentralization and its role in promoting good governance. Both primary and secondary data were used. The primary data was collected through questionnaire and interview while secondary data was collected by conducting extensive desk review from published and unpublished documents like journals, articles, books, reports, etc. To realize the objective of the study 400 employees were selected from 12 selected public sectors of Wolaita and Dawuro zone using simple random sampling techniques. The collected data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative method of data analysis. The finding of the study shows that the practice of political and administrative decentralization was good. But fiscal decentralization was lowly practiced and remains the problem in promoting good governance. This was mainly because power of rising and controlling own revenue, extent of expenditure planning and financing, revenue transfer ratio, autonomy to borrow fund, financial management capacities of local governments were low in Wolaita and Dawuro zones. Therefore, the government should pay attention to fiscal decentralization by encouraging local governments to have enough fiscal control and capacity to plan their activities in most effective and efficient manner. Keywords : Decentralization, Good Governance, Political decentralization, Administrative decentralization, Fiscal decentralization
This paper examines the impact of fiscal decentralization on both public investment in innovation (measured as the share of research and development - R&D - spending in total government budget) and on the intensity of basic research within the public R&D bundle. We present a theoretical model where a ‘benevolent government’ invests in R&D aiming at maximizing net income available in the country (central government) or in the respective region (subnational government), where states compete to attract capital investment, and where R&D results are subject to interregional knowledge spillovers. The model predicts that decentralization leads to a lower level of public spending on innovation and to a lower share of basic research in government R&D budgets. The implications of the model are empirically tested utilizing country aggregate data. We find evidence that expenditure decentralization leads to lower intensity of basic research within public R&D and that both revenue and expenditure decentralization negatively affect the size of innovation spending. The findings suggest that fiscal decentralization policy, expected to be beneficial in many other dimensions, should be accompanied by measures to compensate for the otherwise decrease in innovation spending and that the assignment of expenditure responsibilities should have central government play a greater role in financing and carrying out basic research.
Introduction. Local budgets are the most numerous link of the budget system, the financial base of local authorities, which plays a decisive role in implementing regional policy through financing public expenditures and are the key to the emergence of a capable and efficient local government. However, the unsatisfactory results of the local authorities functioning in previous periods have led to the objective need to reform existing structure of local finances through fiscal decentralization. Purpose.To characterize the essence of financial decentralization from the point of view of its necessity for the economy of territorial and administrative units development and to analyze the success and risks of its implementation in Ukraine. Methods. In the course of writing the article, several methods were used. Among them were the method of analysis and synthesis, scientific comparison, formal logic and dialectics. Results. It has been determined that since the beginning of financial decentralization, the share of local budgets in the consolidated budget of Ukraine has doubled. The local budget revenues has increased in 2.8 times. Facts above indicate increasing in financial resources available to local authorities and, accordingly, more equal distribution of powers and opportunities of local and state authorities. The financial capacity of local budgets is evidenced by the balance of funds on accounts, which at the end of 2017 were amounted to 78.1 billion UAH. As a result, due to the accumulated resources of local budgets, more expenditure responsibilities has been given to local authorities. In addition, since the beginning of 2015, the formation of united territorial communities has begun, of which 699 had been formed by the end of 2017, but only 159 of them are fully operational. However, despite of the results achieved, significant financial, administrative and political factors threaten to continue fiscal decentralization. Conclusion. Despite the successful implementation of financial reform for local budgets, neglecting obvious risks can have a significant impact on the budgetary system of Ukraine. Therefore, the state and local authorities should further strengthen the requirements for the quality of community associations, control over their implementation and more objective planning and analysis of the results achieved, as the shortcomings in the reform will tend to be strengthened and may have a synergistic effect.