Blockchain Papers

Madhurima Koley, Kumarjit Mandal

No abstract is available for this record.

Raúl García-Gómez, Jorge Onrubia, Antonio Jesús Sánchez Fuentes

Efficient use of public resources is clearly a relevant issue to be studied from several points of view. Among others, it accounts for a significant share of the total economy activity and it deals with non market oriented activities. In Spain, the regional level is particularly relevant due to the progressive decentralization during the 200s of key public policies constituting the welfare state (as education, health, etc.). Consequently,it increased notably their financing needs but affecting asymmetrically because of the important differences in their fiscal capacity. Moreover, they mostly share (15 of 17) a common financing system in which an efficient use of resources is assumed but not evaluated. Our results show that normally a few of the regions tend to be the top performers, but there no regions performing poorly in every aspect. It is also worth noting that no dramatic changes can be seen in terms both of expenditure and performance during the recent Great Recession.

Marcin Będzieszak

The aim of this article is to assess the importance of user charges as a source of revenues in state and local government and factors that impact a volume of these revenues. In order to carry out the research it has been assumed that volume of revenues from fees and user charges are dependent on fi scal decentralization, are positively affected public expenditure and depend on the wealth of a society. Two models-for the whole public sector and for state and local government has been designed. Using a panel of 26 selected OECD countries in period 1995-2016 it has been proved that decentralization is a signifi cant factor only in case of fees and user charges in whole public sector but not signifi cant in decentralized model. As expected fees and user charges positively depend on volume of expenditures in both models and additionally negatively depends on tax burden.

Elena Ryabova

The paper is devoted to the issue of centralization in public finance in Russia, and highlights one of the problems of interpretation of the Russian Constitution clauses. The Rulings of the Russian Federation Constitutional Court from the period 1997–2006 created legal grounds for the process of centralization and reduction of the regional powers regarding budgeting and taxation. But all arguments of the Court are debatable. Wherein, the centralization is justified by the constitutional principle of uniform economic area. The author argues that the Russian Constitution does not have clauses establishing the uniform budget and tax systems directly, and any model of intergovernmental relations might comply with the Russian Constitution. Uniformity of economic area does not imply uniformity in taxation and budgeting in the sense of sameness. Study of foreign practices shows different approaches to the understanding of uniformity in economy, and in taxation and budgeting. The contemporary Russian public finance law is formed under the influence of the Constitutional Court’s legal positions, and the process of centralization is still evolving. The Russian history of intergovernmental relations (1991–1997) shows another model of fiscal federalism – the decentralized federalism. Replacement of the fiscal federalism models is determined by the political considerations, not by constitutional requirements.

Tristán Canare, Jamil Paolo Francisco, Rose Ann Camille Caliso

Abstract Decentralization has been a common public finance reform among developing countries in the past few decades. Some advocates pushed for decentralization reform as an answer to the growing problem of income inequality. The primary argument for decentralization is that subnational governments have better information on the needs and preferences of local citizens, while the primary argument against it is that the central government has better economies of scale in delivering public services and usually has better access to important resources. This study tested for the relationship between decentralization and income inequality using both panel data and an annual averaged cross‐section data of countries with varying income levels. The results suggest that revenue decentralization is weakly associated with lower income inequality. In addition, there is also a weak evidence that fiscal independence is associated with higher income inequality, although this is moderated by government effectiveness. Expenditure decentralization has no significant relationship with inequality. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Michael Alexeev, Nikolay Avxentyev, Arseny Mamedov, Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev

Using a panel of Russian regions, we estimate the link between intraregional fiscal decentralization and regional budget deficits. Although Russia’s regions are not as autonomous (either politically or fiscally) as regions in some other federal states, we obtain robust and statistically and economically significant results. Specifically, expenditure decentralization has a positive effect on consolidated regional budget balances, while transfer dependence of municipalities is associated with higher deficits. The impact of revenue decentralization depends on whether a regional government can use its tax revenue assignments with the same high degree of discretion that generally characterizes explicit fiscal transfers. We show that a 2009 local finance reform that limited the discretion of regional governments to assign regional tax revenue to municipalities has changed the effect of tax decentralization on budget discipline.

Yamini Aiyar, Avani Kapur

This paper examines the relationship between fiscal federalism and social policy in India through an analysis of the effects of a recent effort to increase fiscal decentralization to state governments on the nature of social policy investment at the sub-national level. Through its analysis, this paper highlights the persistence of a strong centralisation bias in India’s fiscal architecture for social policy. We trace this centralisation bias to the political and administrative dynamics of the federal bargain. The peculiar dynamics of this bargain have created a context where the core goal of centralization – to ensure equity – is undermined while the expectation of decentralization – greater accountability through alignment of expenditure with local needs and preferences, fails to take root. India is thus likely to continue to witness significant regional variation in social policy outcomes, despite a centralised financing architecture.

Paolo Chiades, Luciano Greco, Vanni Mengotto, Luigi Moretti · 5 authors

For the period 2003–2014, we investigate unexplored effects of fiscal consolidation in decentralized public finance on a large dataset of Italian municipalities. Based on a simple, realistic theoretical model, we show that municipalities increase arrears on committed investment expenditure as a response to intergovernmental transfer cuts. Then, we test our predictions controlling for potential sources of endogeneity, and find that a reduction in intergovernmental transfers causes a significant increase in arrears, in addition to other common adjustments to local fiscal policies (e.g., tax revenues). Our results highlight a perverse effect of fiscal consolidation packages implemented by centrally imposed fiscal restraints.

bhaskar bhaskar

The present paper attempts to look into the nuances of the direct funding of local government from a vantage point of fiscal federalism in India and also the dynamics of financial decentralization. The reports of finance commissions regarding the devolution of tax powers to local governments in order to make them financially autonomous has been looked into with a incisive constitutional mindset. The impact of centrally sponsored scheme in this regard has been looked into by the researcher in order to get the exposer of current federal implications of the same where the party politics and an attempt to create loyal vote bank is driving the pace of CSS which is affecting the fiscal federalism. The GST has also affected the tax structure of country in many aspects and in paper the impact of it on local government has been contemplated.

Srirath Goi Gohwong

This article intention was to set up the big picture of all 1,639 cryptocurrencies up and give a policy recommendation for Thai government. Hence, there were three following objectives as follows: 1) to investigate the state of the art of all cryptocurencies in the source of Code / Forking due to limitation of number of pages 2) to identify the best practice of cryptocurrency, and 3) to study the role of General Prayuth Chan-o-cha’s government towards cryptocurrency. Documentary research and descriptive statistics like frequency and percentage were used in this study. The findings found that there were twelve groups of qualified cryptocurrencies in CoinMarketCap, led by two well-known giant family of crypto market, Ethereum (35.5%) and Bitcoin (16.1%). Then, the best practices were on the provision of coins or tokens, twelve techniques for managing blokchain (such as Blockchainas-a Service), blocktime was between 0.03 and 30 minutes with Mean = 1.96, S.D. = 2.29 whereas TPS was between 0 - 1,400,000 with Mean = 1341.87 and S.D. = 36021.52, most of cryptocurrencies had their own Web Site (95.8%) and E-mail (78.8%), coding played a big role in cryptocurrency such as C . Last, cryptocurrency had both open and hidden-and-dark faces. In the open face, tax, law, people’s identification will be useful. In contrary to the open side, setting an autonomous public organization is one and only one solution for all cryptocentric affairs.

Yu Shi, Rebecca Hendrick, HyungGun Park

This research examines the link between fiscal decentralization and government capacity to service debt, while controlling for fiscal, institutional, economic, and ideological factors that are associated with capacity to service debt held or issued by local governments alone, by state governments alone, and by state and local government combined at the state level. Using panel data from all 50 states in the U.S. from 1962 to 2012, we find a link between fiscal decentralization and capacity to service long-term debt outstanding held by local governments alone and by state and local governments combined. That is, fiscal decentralization is positively associated with state and local government capacity to service debt outstanding. Nevertheless, we do not find that fiscal decentralization has any relationship with government capacity to service debt issuance. Statistical results show that capacity to service debt issuance is primarily affected by capital expenditure and alternative capital financing resources such as special assessment.

Shen Guo, Yingying Shi

No abstract is available for this record.

Mariola Kapidani

Purpose-The financial aspect of local government autonomy is considered a very important topic in the public finance literature especially for the developing countries. Fiscal autonomy empowers the local government units with the right means to provide better services for the community and to proper allocate the funds based on the citizens needs. The purpose of this paper is to study the level of financial autonomy in Albanian municipalities and compare the characteristics within different units of local government. Methodology-In this paper we analyze the financial autonomy of Albanian municipalities by proposing an index to compare the governmental units and classify them in four classes according to the degree of autonomy. Seven quantitative indicators are used in the index, with different importance coefficients. Findings-In Albania, while important progress has been made on advancing the decentralization reform in the last decade, autonomy of local government still remains a challenge. Local authorities do not have appropriate financial resources and they are depended on transfers from the central government budget.

Yin Huayang, Di Zhou, Cui Bing

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.

José M. Magone

The political regime allowed economic liberalization after 1960; nevertheless, its impact did not change the regional disparities between the less and more developed regions of Spain. In spite of all that, the Spanish economy became quite modem on the eve of the death of Franco on 20 November 1975. In the Article 131.2 of the Spanish Constitution, it clearly enshrines the foundation of a committee for the participation of the trade unions and other professional, entrepreneurial, and economic organizations. In the 1990s, the autonomous communities developed their own systems of interest intermediation, which were working well in certain regions and less so in others. The decentralization and regionalization of industrial relations is being complemented by national indicative pacts, which shape the bargaining boundaries at the regional level. The integration into the European Union was a major factor in stabilizing the political economy of Spain, particularly in view of decentralizing production and economic processes.

Arzu Polat, Arkan Yusufoğlu, Muharrem Çakir

No abstract is available for this record.

Concha Artola, María Gil Izquierdo, Javier J. Pérez, Alberto Urtasun · 6 authors

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.

Darío Cestau, Burton Hollifield, Dan Li, Norman Schürhoff

The effective functioning of the municipal bond market is crucial for the provision of public services, as it is the largest capital market for state and municipal issuers. Prior research has documented tax, credit, liquidity, and segmentation effects in municipal bonds. Recent regulatory initiatives to improve transparency have made granular trade data available to researchers, rendering the municipal bond market a natural laboratory for the study of financial intermediation, asset pricing in decentralized markets, and local public finance. Trade-by-trade studies have found large trading costs, contemporaneous price dispersion, and other deviations from the law of one price. More research is required to understand optimal market design and the impact of post-crisis regulation, sustainability, and financial technology.

Robin Boadway, Luc Eyraud

This paper discusses how decentralized countries can achieve sound fiscal relations between the central government and lower government levels. The concepts of “vertical gap” and “vertical balance” provide an analytical framework for identifying and addressing key challenges. These concepts can help policymakers ensure that the financing of subnational governments (composed of transfers received from the center, own revenues, and borrowing) is both efficient and adequate given the allocation of spending responsibilities. More generally, the paper offers some perspectives about the optimal design of decentralization systems by examining the sequencing and economic principles underlying revenue and expenditure assignments, the use of transfers, and borrowing.

Aisha Shahzad, Mohammad Younus

The success of federalism in multiethnic societies greatly depends on fiscal decentralization. It empowers the provincial governments along with the local bodies at the grass root level. In this perspective fiscal decentralization needs structural arrangements in order to ensure revenue generation and appropriate expenditures. It helps to strengthen the national grid to avoid inter-provincial or intra-provincial discrepancies. This study illustrates the relationship between fiscal devolution and symmetrical horizontal economic development. It envisages the devolution plan (2001) introduced by former General Pervez Mushraff in Pakistan under which the Provincial Finance Commissions were established. This research would focus on Punjab as a case study to analyze the working of Provincial Finance Commission. This research tends to address the questions like what have been the patterns of fiscal decentralization in Pakistan? Did National Finance Commission and Provincial Finance Commission promote the principles of equitable devolution of resources in the divisible pool on the basis of need assessment? Could PFC be able to mitigate the intra-provincial disparities in Punjab? Did PFC take efficiency advantage in Punjab through the empowerment of local governments? This study would encompass the analysis of the resource allocation formula opted by the successive governments in the past till present and the counter arguments by the academia and the local body members. Qualitative and quantitative both methods would be used while incorporating primary as well secondary sources. This research concludes with the proposition that empowered local bodies and effective finance commission are the sine qua non of fiscal decentralization in democratic state like Pakistan.

Jagdeep Kumar, Rajpal Singh

The present paper analyzed the changing contour of Indian federalism after the historical constitutional amendments in 1992 related to Panchayati Raj and urban local bodies. The urban local finance in Haryana, particularly after the historical 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 has added a new dimension to the fiscal decentralization and fiscal federalism in this country. This analysis was based upon secondary data collected for the period of 10 years (2004-2014) from various sources on income and expenditure of urban local government in Haryana.

Jane Beckett‐Camarata

The Albanian government has been decentralizing decision making. Central to decentralization is a system of intergovernmental revenue transfers, especially unconditional transfers. This study examines in what ways market conditions and policy options affect the central government and local government relationship. It analyzes unconditional intergovernmental revenue transfers between the central government and local governments to better understand Albanian fiscal decentralization. While the unconditional intergovernmental transfers during the time of this study were found to be stable, the fragmentation of local government units and the evolving role of the regions, could complicate decentralization. The lack of a clear path to local government debt and borrowing, coupled with the system of intergovernmental transfers, has resulted in few viable policy options for balancing local government budgets. A more diversified local revenue structure, coupled with the ability to borrow on the open market, could allow larger and better growth-enhancing public investments without additional budgetary pressures.

Peter Morgan, Long Q. Trinh

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.

Pinaki Chakraborty, Lekha Chakraborty, Anit Mukherjee

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