Fiscal Decentralization and Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: A Cross-Country Analysis

Fiscal decentralization consists primarily of devolving revenue sources and expenditure functions to lower tiers of government. By bringing the government closer to the people, fiscal decentralization is expected to boost public sector efficiency, as well as accountability and transparency in servic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:World development 2000-02, Vol.28 (2), p.365-380
Main Author: de Mello, Luiz R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Decentralization
Economic Policy
Federalism
Fiscal policy
Government
Government spending
policy failures
Policy making
Public Finance
Studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Fiscal decentralization consists primarily of devolving revenue sources and expenditure functions to lower tiers of government. By bringing the government closer to the people, fiscal decentralization is expected to boost public sector efficiency, as well as accountability and transparency in service delivery and policy-making. Decentralization also entails greater complexity in intergovernmental fiscal relations, and coordination failures in fiscal relations are likely to have a bearing on fiscal positions, nationally and subnationally. Evidence provided in this paper for a sample of 30 countries suggests that coordination failures in intergovernmental fiscal relations are likely to result in a deficit bias in decentralized policy-making, particularly in the case of developing countries, which may not meet important requirements for successful decentralization.
ISSN:0305-750X
1873-5991
DOI:10.1016/S0305-750X(99)00123-0