EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Political Economy of Equalization Transfers

Stuti Khemani

Chapter Chapter 15 in Fiscal Equalization, 2007, pp 463-484 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Normative theories of fiscal federalism postulate that intergovernmental transfers should be determined by equity and efficiency considerations, to support local governments in providing differentiated public goods to heterogeneous populations, while ensuring an even distribution of basic services across all regions (Musgrave, 1959, 1983; Oates, 1972; Gramlich, 1977). However, a recent surge of empirical evidence shows that the distribution of transfers across local jurisdictions, and what local governments do with these transfers is heavily influenced by political incentives facing both national and local policy-makers. Although the notion that intergovernmental transfers, like most other public policy issues, are influenced by and interact with political institutions and processes, is far from earth-shattering, until recently there had been little attempt to internalize the political implications when analyzing the role of transfers in equalizing access to basic services for all citizens. However, the new evidence shows that politics has such substantial impact on both the distribution and use of resources for local service delivery that it cannot be avoided nor side-stepped when developing intergovernmental fiscal policies for equalization.

Keywords: Local Government; Basic Service; American Political Science Review; Independent Agency; Equalization Transfer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Political Economy of Equalization Transfers (2004) Downloads
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:spr:sprchp:978-0-387-48988-9_19

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9780387489889

DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-48988-9_19

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-04-02
Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-0-387-48988-9_19