Recent theoretical research suggests that financing sub-national governments’ expenditure out of own revenue sources is linked to more responsible budgeting, because the financial implications of spending decisions then are internalized within a jurisdiction. We test this proposition...

Transfers and bailouts: enforcing local fiscal discipline with lessons from U.S. federalism / Robert P. Inman -- Constraining subnational fiscal behavior in Canada: different approaches, similar results? / Richard M. Bird and Almos Tassonyi -- Vertical imbalance and fiscal behavior in a welfare...

Since the early 1980s fiscal and political decentralization have spread around the world. But decentralization can encourage dangerous opportunistic behavior by state and local officials. Left unrestricted, such opportunism can undermine macroeconomic stability and other objectives. The most...

This paper describes the progress that has been made since 2006 in establishing statistical databases on tax autonomy and intergovernmental grants, aiming to better understand sub-central finance and intergovernmental fiscal relations. The paper is divided into two parts: a first part on taxing...

The distribution of public revenues is one of the fundamental elements in the shaping of the system of public finance in any country. The process is difficult from both the political and economic points of view. Also the objective conditions make the ideal distribution impossible and any...

The paper highlights the importance of the design of the fiscal features of the federal system of government in ensuring that potential benefits from its adoption are realized. This economic literature on fiscal federalism posits a framework that delineates the potential benefits ensuing from...

This paper examines the patterns and trends in inter-state migration across Indian states and observes that migration is affected by demographic profile as well as the fiscal profile of states. Econometric estimation suggests that level of vertical federal transfers and its horizontal...