This paper examines the importance of fiscal autonomy in the analysis of decentralization. Using new data published by the OECD (2001 and 2002), it reproduces several indicators and proposes new measures of decentralization that take into consideration su-bnational governments'autonomy over...

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that isrich enough to capture some of the central features of the interaction between national tax systems in an integrated world but simple enough to yield sharp insights into some of the central questions which that interaction raises. The...

Although several studies have found a negative relationship between government spending and entrepreneurship, much debate remains regarding the components of government spending responsible for this association. This paper contributes to the literature by specifically exploring the relationship...

It is generally accepted that government health expenditures should disproportionately benefit the poor. And yet in most developing countries the opposite is the case. This paper examines the implications of a central assumption of benefit incidence analysis, namely that the unit cost of a...

The author brings together two of government's primary challenges: environmental protection, and taxation to generate revenues. If negative externalities can be reduced not only by changes in consumption patterns, but also by making each activity cleaner (abatement efforts), how shall...

The authors analyze developments in general government spending and revenues for 26 former social economies for 1989-94. The data show that, rather than uniformly converting to a"Western European"norm, these reforming economies have followed a variety of patterns. Whether a country drifts toward...

The authors of this report use data on China to demonstrate how the allocation of fiscal revenue and expenditures between central and local governments has affected economic growth since reforms that began in the late 1970s. They find a higher degree of fiscal decentralization associated with...

The authors investigate the relationship between the productivity of African manufacturing firms and their access to services inputs. They use data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for over 1,000 firms in 10 Sub-Saharan African countries to calculate the total factor productivity of firms....

The authors examine alternatives for dealing with the initial conditions of housing finance facing countries making the transition to a market economy and moving toward a more efficient and equitable system. They focus on the problem of restructuring the stock of housing loans that exist at the...