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...

Tax incentives neither make up for serious deficiencies in a country's investment environment nor generate the desired externalities. But when other factors, such as infrastructure, transport costs, and political and economic stability are more or less equal, the taxes in one location may have a...

"The authors compare the two merger control systems currently employed worldwide: a mandatory system based on merger size threshold and a voluntary system with ex-post monitoring and fines. The voluntary system possesses two informational advantages: (i) the enforcement agency employs more...

This study explores the short-term welfare and distributive effects of selected fuel tax and subsidy reforms in six countries in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region that are aimed at promoting the transformation of energy systems and have the potential to generate much-needed fiscal...

The Russia Social Expenditure Review (SER) has been undertaken by the human development team in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank at the request of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. This Report presents the key findings of the Russia SER work. The key...

This report concerns improving intergovernmental fiscal relations and public health and education expenditure policy in Ukraine. The large amount of resources the budget spends on services such as health and education, through its local government do not obtain good value. This is due to the...

The study presents an overview of the most relevant, current intergovernmental fiscal issues in the Czech Republic, centered on the options available to prod policy planning. The fragmentation at the lowest tier of government is the most striking feature of the administrative structure, thus...

The globalization of financial markets, has increased international pressure on the federal governments to maintain a hard budget constraint, with respect to sub-national governments. Because growth in sub-national deficits undermines investor confidence, the federal government is under pressure...

Municipalities play a large role in the Bulgarian public sector. They provide primary and secondary education. They own and operate about one-third of the hospitals in the country. Until 2003, they administered all the major social assistance programs (except pensions and unemployment...

This report reviews two facets of decentralization currently engaging policy-makers: 1) the sources of financing under decentralization, and, 2) cross-cutting processes to strengthen the accountability of resource use. It does not assess whether decentralization is justified in the Philippines -...