Over 330 million people live in Indias cities; 35 cities have a population of over a million and three (Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata) of the 10 largest metropolises in the world are in India. Indias cities are large, economically important, and growing. However, neither urban infrastructure nor...

Over 330 million people live in India's cities; 35 cities have a population of over a million and three (Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata) of the 10 largest metropolises in the world are in India. India's cities are large, economically important, and growing. However, neither urban infrastructure nor...

We argue in this paper that better rural local governments are needed to improve the lives of billions and that a good property tax is the key to improving rural local governments. Moreover, we suggest that only by giving local governments both the incentive and the ability to levy a property...

The aim of this paper is to review from a fiscal perspective the different models of governing structure found in metropolitan areas around the world. While there is considerable dispute in the literature as to exactly how, and how much, the design of governing institutions matters in affecting...

Recently many commentators have expressed concern about the fiscal health of Toronto and, more generally, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Such concern is puzzling because most of the available evidence suggests that municipalities in the GTA are fiscally healthy. Over the past decade, for...

This paper is a brief review of some issues in urban finance facing China’s larger cities. It argues that at present many key aspects of the ways in which local and metropolitan governments finance infrastructure and services in China seem to be both too obscure for proper accountability and...

In this paper, we examine the issue of the incidence of central government budgets in federal countries. In Section 1, we discuss a number of reasons why the picture painted of reality by even the best fiscal flow analysis is inevitably partial and hence inherently flawed to an unknowable...

Over 330 million people live in India’s cities; 35 cities have a population of over a million and three (Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata) of the 10 largest metropolises in the world are in India. India’s cities are large, economically important, and growing. However, neither urban infrastructure...

We present a summary analysis of the important changes in township and village finance in China between 2000 and 2004, based on a survey of 100 villages in 50 townships in 25 counties in five provinces. The reforms included the elimination of regular fee assessments imposed on rural households...

This paper considers several distinct but related aspects of what we are doing when we attempt to measure and evaluate the fiscal health of cities: How is the fiscal health of cities defined in the literature? How is this concept related to fiscal sustainability? How may fiscal health be...