Pakistan's social protection system is still in a nascent stage of development and so is the country's fiscal and institutional architecture for inter-governmental relations. In particular, the implicit devolution of social protection and related functions in the eighteenth constitutional...

A review of the history of the United States from its colonial origins shows how Americas successful development has always been guided by two basic principles: representative democracy, and a proper division of power between national and subnational governments. The United States of America was...

Donors increasingly fund interventions to counteract inequality in developing countries, where they fear it can foment instability and undermine nation-building efforts. To succeed, aid relies on the principle of upward accountability to donors. But federalism shifts the accountability of...

Ethiopia is a highly decentralized country. Presently, sub-national government taxes and revenues account for about 28 percent of general taxes and revenues, and sub-national expenditures amount to 51 percent of general government expenditures. The ensuing vertical mismatch is bridged by grants...

The potential for subnational governance to serve as a catalyst of peace has been widely recognized. It is reflected in the frequent inclusion of subnational governance arrangements in political settlements. The study seeks to analyze the merits and risks of subnational governance as a conflict...

This paper provides background for the Government of Indonesia as it considers if and how to introduce more robust local government performance incentives into the intergovernmental fiscal framework. The next section briefly examines the forces that have driven the recent national wave of...

The aim of this note is to present and analyze subnational fiscal trends in Russia in the context of overall slowing economic growth and falling oil prices over the last few years. In particular, in 2015, GDP fell by 3.7 percent. Despite efforts to cut expenditures, the federal deficit increased...

This paper reviews the experiences of intergovernmental fiscal systems (IGFS) to look for possible lessons for how Official Development Assistance (ODA) is delivered. Specifically, it compares IGFS and ODA in two specific respects. The first is the proportion of public resources that central...

The aim of this note is to present and analyze subnational fiscal trends in Russia in the context of overall slowing economic growth and falling oil prices over the last few years. In particular, in 2015, GDP fell by 3.7 percent. Despite efforts to cut expenditures, the federal deficit increased...

US federal transfers to individuals are large, countercyclical, vary geographically, and are often credited for helping stabilize regional economies. This paper estimates the short-run effects of these transfers using plausibly exogenous regional variation in temporary stimulus packages and...