The author examines the reasons developing countries are reexamining the respective roles of the private sector, civil society, and various levels of government--and considering new fiscal arrangements between national and lower levels of government. Decentralization may be particularly...

This paper examines the importance of fiscal autonomy in the analysis of decentralization. Using new data published by the OECD (2001 and 2002), it reproduces several indicators and proposes new measures of decentralization that take into consideration su-bnational governments'autonomy over...

A successful poverty alleviation strategy has four distinct elements: 1) identifying who the poor are, where they are located, and what they do; 2) analyzing why they are poor; 3) developing policies to improve their standards of living; and 4) supplementing income-improving policies with...

Recent experience with fiscal decentralization in many developing and transition economies has led many observers to question whether fiscal decentralization undermines macroeconomic stability. In several countries, transfers from central to lower-level governments have increased fiscal deficits...

Subnational fiscal autonomy-the basis for fiscal federalism in modern federations-is meant to serve two roles. First, local control over revenue collection is meantto provide a check on the capacity of central authorities to tax arbitrarily local capital. Second, retention of taxes raised...

The authors consider the malaise with the present set-up of fiscal federalism in Mexico from the points of view of the main players-the federal government, the states, the municipalities, and the citizen voters-in order to identify the areas of potential common interest as well as the direct...

Brazil is a three-tiered federation of 24 states, two federal territories, a federal district, and 4,300 municipalities. In 1989 less than half of all government spending was controlled by the federal government. Brazil's new constitution gave autonomous broad powers to states and municipalities...

In shifting to decentralized public finances, a country's central government faces certain fiscal management problems. First, during and soon after the transition, unless it reduces pending or increases its own tax resources, the central government tends to have higher deficits as it shifts...

The way taxing and spending authorities are delineated and the manner in which intergovernmental transfers are structured in a country have come to be recognized as fundamentally important in the efficient and equitable provision of public services. The objective of this paper is to provide a...

The transition from socialism characteristically reduces existing tax revenues at the same time that it increases the need for government spending. An increasing need for revenue combined with an eroding tax base creates a transition-related fiscal gap and a challenge for tax policy. The...