Macroeconomic Management and the Devolution of Fiscal Powers

Paulo Drummond and Ali Mansoor

Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 2003, vol. 39, issue 1, 63-85

Abstract: Several of the transition economies are devolving fiscal authority to subnational governments at a time when it is also important to consolidate fiscal policy. This can be problematic because, without appropriate care, the central government's ability to determine the level and structure of revenues, public spending, and borrowing may well diminish as fiscal policy is devolved. This paper focuses on how the center can maintain its ability to conduct fiscal policy while devolving revenue, spending, and borrowing powers to lower levels of government. Empirical evidence shows that countries with good governance have maintained fiscal control despite a high degree of fiscal devolution. And decentralization is associated with better fiscal outcomes for middle-income countries with strong governance. Fiscal management issues are explored in four key areas: budget coordination mechanisms at the macro level, tax-effort incentives and revenue-sharing mechanisms, expenditure control and hard-budget constraints, and criteria and rules for borrowing.

Keywords: fiscal policies; intergovernmental relations; state and local government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://mesharpe.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=HCF34QCNJ71N4G6X (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:emfitr:v:39:y:2003:i:1:p:63-85

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MREE20

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Emerging Markets Finance and Trade from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().