Despite the widespread debate about crime in Brazil and the alarming increase in homicides in recent years, few studies have analyzed or exposed evidence of the impact of public security spending on deterring violence in the country. This may be due to issues of endogeneity when estimating the...

Despite the widespread debate about crime in Brazil and the alarming increase in homicides in recent years, few studies have analyzed or expos ed evidence of the impact of public security spending on det erring violence in the country . This may be due to issues of endogeneity when estimating...

According to an influential theoretical argument, presidential systems tend to present smaller governments because the separation between those who decide the size of the fiscal purse and those who allocate it creates incentives for lower public expenditures. In practice, forms of government...

Medium Term Fiscal Frameworks (MTFs) have become one of the most popular reforms to the budgetary process in Latin America during the last decade, and introducing MTFs seemed to be the magic solution for most fiscal ailments. Nonetheless, there has been no comprehensive evaluation of their...

This paper investigates the political economy of fiscal reform activism in Argentina since the late 1980s. Between 1988 and 2008, tax legislation was changed 83 times, fiscal federal rules 14 times, and budgetary institutions sixteen times. Tax and budgetary reforms moved from centralizing...

Under what conditions do countries comply with their fiscal policy rules? We tackle this question in the context of emerging countries, with a specific focus on Latin America and the Caribbean, a region where fiscal rules have become increasingly common in recent decades. Based on an original...

This paper surveys the evolution and implications of fiscal decentralization in Colombia in recent decades. After describing the fiscal decentralization process and its impact on sub-national finances, the paper presents the evolution of departmental public finances, departmental vertical...

This paper analyzes the problem of sub-national revenue mobilization in Peru and proposes several policy reforms to improve collection performance while maintaining a sound revenue structure. In particular, the paper analyzes the current revenues of regional and municipal governments and...

This paper address options for restructuring the revenue system of Bolivia's subnational governments, particularly prefectures, emphasizing reduction of dependence on natural resources and strengthening of subnational tax autonomy. The paper additionally identifies tax instruments or tax bases...