In China, most of the service delivery responsibilities are assigned to the subnational governments. Yet for reasons of efficiency in tax collection and administration, the central government collects revenues far in excess of its expenditure needs. In 2003 the central government collected 70...

Intergovernmental finance is a significant source of sub-national finance in most countries. In both industrial and developing countries, formula based "manna from heaven" general purpose transfers dominate but co-exist with highly intrusive micro-managed "command and control" specific purpose...

During the past decade, Indonesia has transformed itself from centralized governance to decentralized local governance. Local governments were given extensive expenditure responsibilities while keeping the tax system centralized. To finance decentralized provincial-local expenditures, Indonesia...

This paper reviews the conceptual challenges as well as lessons from worldwide experiences in implementing public services and expenditure need compensation in fiscal equalization transfers with a view to developing guidance for practitioners. The paper concludes that while in theory a strong...

The anti-corruption strategy the World Bank announced in September 1997 defined corruption as the "use of public office for private gain" and called for the Bank to address corruption along four dimensions: 1) Preventing fraud and corruption in Bank projects; 2) Helping countries that request...

This paper presents an overview of the constitutional-legal provisions on access to services in developing countries and shows that rights to public services are not justice-able. It further documents the performance record to show that governments' response to such a weak accountability...

This paper examines the conceptual and empirical basis of corruption and governance and concludes that decentralized local governance is conducive to reduced corruption in the long run. This is because localization helps to break the monopoly of power at the national level by bringing...

Intergovernmental fiscal transfers are a dominant feature of subnational finance in most countries. They are used to ensure that revenues roughly match the expenditure needs of various orders (levels) of subnational governments. They are also used to advance national, regional, and local area...

An extensive literature on the relationship between decentralization (or localization) and corruption has developed in recent years. While some authors argue that there is a positive relationship between decentralization and corruption, others claim that decentralization in fact leads to a...