This paper tries to contribute to the current discussion on sharing rules of royalties in Brazil from theoretical and empirical reflections about fiscal federalism and from a comparative analysis of the experiences of oil producing countries that, as our example, organize themselves like...

While gerrymandering in developing countries is often pushed by local authorities to secure political advantages, fiscal grants systems under decentralization may also have result in the same. We investigate this issue to identify the correlates of the growth in the number of cities in the...

In some ways, a 2012 symposium on “Dilemmas of State Debt” may seem a bit behind the news curve. At the end of 2010, municipal bond markets were in a deep funk. Analysts predicted that countless municipalities and perhaps one or more of the United States might default on their debt...

This paper investigates the impact of inequality in the geographic distribution of fiscal resources on regional economic growth under fiscal decentralization policy in the context of China’s experience, using panel data for 28 provinces over the period 1987–2010. In the recent past, the...

State borders create a discontinuous tax treatment of retail sales. In a Nash game, local tax rates will be higher on the low-state-tax side of a border. Local taxes will decrease from the nearest high-tax border and increase from the low-tax border. Using driving time from state borders and all...

The link between federalism and economic performance is still ambiguous. Aiming at clarification, we improve on a widespread shortcoming by measuring federalism not just by one variable but by various institutions that constitute it. To this end, Switzerland provides for a laboratory as its 26...

The paper provides empirical analysis of the relationship between fiscal decentralisation and the quality of public services in the Russian regions. The analysis suggests that fiscal decentralisation has no significant effect on the key inputs into secondary education, such as schools,...

We develop a political economy model of intergovernmental transfers. Vertical fiscal balance occurs in a federation when the ratio of the marginal benefit of the public services provided by the federal and provincial governments is equal to their relative marginal costs of production. With...