The main features of China’s current sub-national finance arrangements date back to the 1994 tax reform. China has a multi-level government structure that shares national tax revenues through a system of tax sharing and transfers, and divides spending assignments and responsibilities. Local...

We test the "yardstick competition" hypothesis by looking at the effects of property tax increases both in the locality and in other comparable jurisdictions on the incumbents' vote. In order to obtain unbiased estimates of the effects of taxes on voting, we account for national political...

This paper investigates the link between local budget outcomes and the intensity of party competition, measured as the margin of victory obtained by the incumbent in the previous local election (i.e. the difference between the vote share and 50%). Two competing hypotheses are tested in the...

The debate about the amalgamation of local government units stems from the fact that their political borders (the institutional territory) do no longer coincide with the functional territory required for an efficient provision of most local public services. And both do not correspond with the...

Article about the problems of municipal governments related to fiscal consolidation in the Russian regions and the construction of the vertical of power during the first presidency of Vladimir Putin. The author analyzes the impact of the decline of the financial base of the city governments and...

This paper looks for empirical evidence on spillovers occurring between central cities and their suburbs, both on the fiscal side and on the growth of population and output. To test these hypotheses we specify a dynamic model with population and output both in the central city and in the suburbs...

New Zealand is unusual in that nearly 60% of local services are funded from property taxes. These are a mixture of land taxes, capital value taxes, annual rental value taxes and uniform general charges. We explore the efficiency and equity of this system at both national and local levels. We...