Local governments in less developed countries (LDCs) are generally faced with the problem of inadequate fiscal resources, with much more severity than their counterparts in the more developed countries. There are a number of reasons for this state of affairs. In a country where there is...

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The large and unsustainable deficits of the early 1980s have reemerged in recent years. This paper aims to answer two questions: What has caused the poor fiscal performance of the Philippines in recent years? Is it the result of unfortunate events, macroeconomic shocks or misdirected fiscal...

The most important role that fiscal policy can play with regard to growth is to ensure macroeconomic stability. But despite two highly visible tax reform programs in less than two decades, the Philippines is now in the midst of a fiscal crisis. This has been brought about by pressures on the...

One basic hypothesis in development finance is that the share of direct taxes, which includes taxes on personal and corporate incomes, increases as development proceeds. During the period 1961-1973, the share of income taxes to total taxes in the Philippines has grown in accordance with this...

This paper describes a framework for evaluating the financial performance of state-operated enterprise (SOEs). The proposed framework maintains the distinction between commercial enterprises and service-oriented enterprises. In the first case, the sponsoring government is assumed to be concerned...

This paper argues that the rationale for public enterprises flows from the general discussion on the justification for state intervention. Within a welfare theoretic framework, it argues that the wide range of stated motives for using the public enterprise form can in most cases be attributed to...

The Philippine national government experienced large and unsustainable budget deficits in the 1980s. After a brief period of near balanced budget in the mid-1990s, large budget deficits have reemerged in recent years. But unlike the heavy fiscal imbalances in the early 1980s which were caused by...