Fiscal decentralization reform, the reform of fiscal relations between different levels of government, is an important fiscal policy issue in many African countries. While for many African nations the decentralized delivery of government goods and services is a relatively new concept, the issue...

One of the most important goals of government policy is to address inequalities in the distribution of income and to try to improve the welfare of the poor. An important part of the theory and practice of public finance is dedicated to conceptualizing and measuring how the revenue and...

Indonesia is engaged in an unprecedented major social and economic experiment in which much authority and responsibility for its governmental expenditures are being decentralized from the national government, largely to the local government level rather than the provincial government level. From...

The fundamental tax reform undertaken in the late 70s by the first democratic governments helped to overcome the antiquated tax regime, kicking off a panoply of other reforms and laying the revenue foundations for the transformation of Spain 's public sector. Indeed, the nature of today's tax...

Over twenty-five years have passed since the original predecessors of today's Personal and Corporate Income Taxes came into force on January 1, 1979 and since the Urgent Measures on Tax Reform were published on November 14, 1977. The latter signaled the start of a major reform process aimed at...

This paper explores household food consumption in Jamaica and estimates the effects of related variables on the intensity of consumption. Use of data from the 2001 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions permits estimation of an Engel curve that reflects the relationship between household food...

South Africa is at a crossroads in its decentralization policy. On the one hand, it has declared its intention to strengthen the fiscal powers of local governments. On the other hand, the institutional arrangements to guarantee fiscal decentralization -- revenue powers and expenditure...

Fiscal decentralization in Indonesia had been a slow-burning affair since the mid 1970s, with the country being one of the most centralized in the world, until the “Big Bang” of the 1999 reforms, when, in the period of one year, Indonesia became in terms of expenditure shares one of the most...

This paper investigates the relationship between public sector employment and fiscal decentralization. We develop a theoretical framework modeling the interactions between the central and sub-national executives regarding the level of public employment at the central and sub-national government...

The past ten years have been witness to one of the largest experiments in economic history, namely the transition of centrally planned economies to market-based economies. While policy reform in transitional countries has encompassed virtually every sector of the economy, modernization of public...