There is a widespread presumption that decentralization improves public service provision. This has led to policy prescriptions that are assiduously adhered to by countries and international. This paper reviews the recent evidence from OECD countries-which is seen to be inconclusive. This...

This paper describes the growth of public spending in industrial countries over the past century. It identifies several periods: the periods between 1870 and 1913; the period between the two World Wars; the post World War II period up to 1960; and the period after 1960. Public spending started growing...

The paper surveys the role of financial markets and fiscal institutions in the transformation process going on in Eastern and Central Europe. It highlights (a) the need to create some sort of “social ecological balance” necessary for the working of a modern market economy; (b) the need to...

Paper discusses the factors that contribute to the spread of corruption as well as the implications of corruption for markets and for public sector activities. It is argued that corruption can be contained mainly by a scaling down of the public sector activities that stimulate its growth.

Social protection in industrial countries has been provided through regulations, tax expenditures, and public spending. This paper argues that globalization will affect governments’ ability to continue providing this social protection at the level of recent decades. Specifically, tax...

Given the increasing integration of financial markets, a better understanding of the effects of fiscal deficits and debt on real interest rates might be obtained by taking a global, rather than a national, perspective. The paper constructs aggregate flow and stock data (including GDP, fiscal...

Tax administration plays a crucial role In determining a country’s real (or effective) tax system. Unfortunately, tax administrations in many countries do not function optimally and distort the intention of tax laws. In order for taxation to have its intended effect on the allocation of...

Corruption, particularly political or “grand” corruption, distorts the entire decision-making process connected with public investment projects. The degree of distortions is higher with weaker auditing institutions. The evidence presented shows that higher corruption is associated with (i)...

This paper assembles a set of relevant fiscal data, for both the individual countries and for the aggregate G-7 and 18 industrial countries, which covers a period long enough to allow an assessment of trends and the conduct of econometric tests. The “world” fiscal deficit has been rising...

Taxes affect the degree and efficiency of financial intermediation in many different ways. This paper summarizes the main tax provisions in OECD countries that affect the overall “tax wedge” between pre-tax returns on investments, and the post-tax yield on the savings that finance them. This...