Does fiscal decentralization improve health and educational outcomes? Does this improvement depend on the quality of governance? How do fiscal decentralization and governance interact? We answer these questions through an instrumental variable Tobit analysis of cross-country panel data. We find...

This paper documents recent labor market performance in the Latin American region. The paper shows that unemployment, informality, and inequality have been falling over the past two decades, though still remain high. By contrast, productivity has remained stubbornly low. The paper, then, turns...

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether expenditure decentralization has contributed to weakening fiscal performance in Europe. Using a panel of EU15 countries for the period 1995-2011, we estimate three econometric models and ask the following questions: (1) does the form of spending...

This paper discusses how decentralized countries can achieve sound fiscal relations between the central government and lower government levels. The concepts of 'vertical gap' and 'vertical balance' provide an analytical framework for identifying and addressing key challenges. These concepts can...

Already in precarious shape, the financial health of India's states took a turn for the worse in the late 1990s when state deficits and debt rose sharply. While India is among the world's most decentralized economies, greater decentralization is not the root cause of this situation. Panel...

In recent decades, population has been aging fast in Brazil while old age pensions and health related spending have increased. As the population ages, the spending trend threaten to reach unsustainable levels absent reforms. Increasing the retirement age is key, but by itself will not provide...

The recent European sovereign debt crisis highlighted the critical role of regional lending arrangements. For the first time, European mechanisms were called to design financing programmes for member countries in trouble. This paper analyses how the risk of contagion, an essential characteristic...

We review the current state of the West African Economic and Monetary Union's tax coordination framework, against the main objectives of the WAEMU Treaty of 1994: reduce distortions to intra-community trade, and mobilize domestic tax revenue. The process of tax coordination in WAEMU is one of...

Using a novel municipality-level panel dataset, this paper investigates the empiricalcharacteristics of vertical fiscal imbalances (VFIs) in Moldova over the period 2005–13. Theresults show that the extent of variation in VFIs across 898 municipalities can be explained bythe level of per...

Local governments play a significant role in China's public finance and fiscal operations. The size of local government debt has grown rapidly over the past years, exceeding the stock of sovereign debt in China. How does this development compare to other countries and what policies can foster...