Most countries, developed and developing, are fiscally decentralized with regional and local governments of varying importance. In many of these countries, some of these sub-national governments differ substantially from others in terms of wealth, ethnic, religious, or linguistic composition....

This book addresses a variety of issues relating to intergovernmental finance and the provision and financing of local services including budgeting and financial management, the institutional framework for the conduct of intergovernmental relations, appropriate methods of service delivery in...

This paper reviews the literature on tax assignment in decentralized countries. Ideally, own-source revenues should be sufficient to enable at least the richest subnational governments to finance from their own resources all locally-provided services that primarily benefit local residents....

Excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco have long been a dependable and significant revenue source in many countries. More recently, considerable attention has been paid to the way in which such taxes may also be used to attain public health objectives by reducing the consumption of products with...

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Tables -- Preface -- One. Public Finance and Economic Development -- 1. Public Finance and Development in Colombia -- 2. The Developmental Task of Tax Policy -- Two. Tax Structure Reform -- 3. Growth, Equity, and the Income Tax -- 4. Taxation and the Allocation of...

This insightful study examines the decentralization experiences from 15 countries in different regions of the world. All of these countries have actively attempted to decentralize, or continue to do so, and have faced obstacles serious enough to either derail or significantly delay their...