An examination of the history of budget reform in the United States indicates a perpetual tug of war between the executive and legislative branches of government for power. But surprisingly, in spite of this highly charged political process, there exists a consistent and common thread of concern...

The paper brings together the information on different components of revenues and expenditures of the urban local bodies (ULBs) in Jharkhand and analyses their growth over a recent period. The performances of the ULBs are evaluated by estimating some indicators based on actual revenues and...

We measure the contribution of fiscal decentralization to trust in government. Using repeated cross-country survey data of individuals on several measures of trust in government over the 1994-2007 period, we estimate an ordered response model of the government trust and fiscal decentralization...

Rural government decentralization in West Bengal has been a focus of the state government since the state’s 1973 Panchayat Act. The three-tiered Panchayat Raj (PRI) system provides a role for governance at the district, block, and gram panchayat levels. The Government of West Bengal (GOWB) has...

Based on other studies in this series commissioned by DFID and the World Bank this draft report outlines a tentative proposal for a new fiscal transfer to Gram Panchayats (GPs) to phase in, as the current DFID project (Strengthening Rural Development, SRD) phases out in 2011. According to...

The State of West Bengal in its Annual Financial Statement of 2009-2010 called for “decentralization with accountability.” In addition to an expanded welfare system and the promotion of self-reliance at the local level, the State has been concerned with improving livelihoods through...

The viability of stimulative fiscal policy has become a political issue in South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand since the Asian financial crisis of 1997. This paper examines historical relationships between government spending, taxes, and output in these countries using cointegration and vector...

The key aspects of intergovernmental fiscal relations must be dealt with in the specific circumstances of each country. Nonetheless, certain basic questions invariably come up in every country. The present paper attempts to digest and reflect upon what we have learned to date about such...

The search for “fiscal indicators” to provide a short-hand (and preferably quantitative) picture of the size, direction, and nature of intergovernmental finance – and, ideally, some guidance for policy designed to improve outcomes – appears to be neverending. “Fiscal balance” and...

The value-added tax has, in recent decades, become the most important single tax in most developing and transitional economies. This paper reviews some problems that have emerged as important as more experience has been gained with how VATs really work in many such countries and suggests some...