Fiscal decentralization has been, and remains high on the policy agenda of many countries. It is mainly driven by political pressures, which tend to be especially evident in countries with multiple ethnicities, and/or wide regional disparities in incomes or resource endowments. More generally,...

Based on cross-country data for up to 78 countries, this paper shows that fiscal decentralization-the assignment of expenditure and revenue mobilization functions to subnational levels of government-is associated with various indicators of governance, such as corruption, rule of law, and...

Conventional wisdom postulates that there are benefits from decentralizing government finances but there is little empirical evidence about actual country practices. This paper presents data on fiscal decentralization for about 80 countries over a period of about 20 years (1990-2008) from the...

Countries where social and political institutions stimulate interpersonal trust, civic cooperation, and social cohesiveness tend to have more efficient governments, better governance systems, and faster growth. This paper provides cross-country evidence, based on a sample of developing and...

The IMF is in the process of revising its 2001 Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency. The four core principles of the original Code remain unchanged in the revision: institutional clarity, open budget processes, public information and integrity. However, the document has been updated and...

This paper responds to the Board's call for greater consistency in fiscal reporting in line with GFSM 2001. In this context, the paper summarizes the framework, reviews the implementation process of the GFSM 2001 framework by member countries and Fund staff, and proposes pilot studies. It seeks...