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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between government and Balinese society in tax decentralization through budgeting seem to insignificantly improve the welfare of Balinese society.

This research was conducted in Bali Province involving eight regencies and one city. The data used in this study were secondary data, derived from relevant institutions or from websites through internet browsing and other documentations in the form of official reports/publications, such as regional budget, accountability reports, regional regulations and documents on budget and development of the regional economy. The present research used the partial least squares analysis technique.

Fiscal decentralization does not necessarily lead to better budget management. The success of fiscal decentralization can be found in the quality of the regional budget and the quality of budget management. The allocation of the regional budget for public service improvement and the development of infrastructure will increase the economic capacity of the regions. Improvement in regional economic capacity encourages the improvement of community welfare.

This income inequality points to the issue of fiscal capacity. The development of the financial role of district/city regions in the Province of Bali remains at a level gap with the development level of community welfare. During this period, the financial role of the government as estimated from the ratio of the national budget to the regional budget is higher than that of the society development. The acceleration role of the government is not proportional to the development of Human Development Index outcomes.

The impact of fiscal decentralization on equalization between regions has received significant attention but there has been much less research of the impact of decentralization on equalization within regions. Theory suggests that the tradeoff between local fiscal autonomy and equalization ought to be most pronounced at the sub-region level where rural-urban disparities in the level of development are substantial. This paper is an empirical analysis of the impact of fiscal decentralization on equalization within one Russian region, Leningrad (State). We show that the regional government uses a mixture of fiscal instruments to strike a balance between giving more budgetary autonomy to local governments and eliminating the disparities among them. We also develop a method for studying this tradeoff between decentralization and equalization when only limited data are available. Finally, we argue and demonstrate that without a detailed understanding of the institutional arrangement for intergovernmental fiscal relations, one cannot evaluate the equalization or decentralization implications.

The purpose of the paper is to examine China's county‐level fiscal difficulties. A large portion of China's counties (county‐level cities) have to run with the shortage of financial resources and huge government debt. To make a suitable policy to solve this problem is a top priority.

Using the first‐hand survey data, the paper compares nine sample counties whose economic development level is different, sums up the difficulties county‐level governments are facing and explores countermeasures from qualitative and quantitative approaches.

By studying the survey data of nine sample counties (cities), it is found that county‐level finance is facing the following problems: low‐level fiscal revenue, high debt risk and large gap of fiscal revenue between different counties (cities). Based on these findings, the paper provides suggestions such as ensuring that the county‐level government has sufficient fiscal resources and improving the transfer payment system.

Data from three well‐developed counties (county‐level cities), three middle‐income counties (county‐level cities) and three backward counties made the paper's findings more comprehensive and realistic and suggestions more practical.

Despite existence of a constitutional demarcation of functions and finances between the centre and the states, it is alleged that the centre-state funds transfer systems in India have a political bargaining aspect that goes beyond the normative considerations. This paper makes an attempt to investigate if the political system allows to evolve a simple, equitable, objective and rule-based system of transfers. The aim of this paper is to explore the political economic determinants of discretionary fiscal transfers in India.

This paper is based on a panel data set of 28 Indian states for the period 2001–2014. After diagnostic checking for fixed effects/random effects, the authors prefer to use fixed effects regression with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors and Arellano–Bover/Blundel and Bond system estimation model that uses moment conditions in which lagged first differences of the dependent variable are instruments for the level equation.

The findings of this study reveal that fiscal performance, economic capacity and political alliance are significant but some other political determinants such as bargaining power and election years are not significant in influencing discretionary transfers.

Considering the limited availability of literature on federal finance, the present paper is an addition to the existing research, especially on a crucial issue concerning extra-constitutional fiscal transfers in India. Analysing a balanced panel comprising all the Indian states and examining the role of various political-economic determinants makes this paper topical.

This paper reviews Korean intergovernmental relations in the 1990s with an emphasis on fiscal relations among the different levels of the government. In the 1990s, Korea reinvigorated its system of local autonomy first established in the sixties. A major issue in the implementation of this system is the presence of vertical and horizontal disparities in local fiscal capacity. Although some efforts have been made to transfer tax sources from central government to local governments or establish local transfer (block grants), fiscal autonomy still remains below expectation, jeopardizing the realization of full local autonomy. This paper is an effort to look into these issues and search for solutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of government institutions and prompted a broad range of policy measures from governments around the world. Policy responses to the pandemic have varied considerably, both in nature and in success. This paper highlights the policy capacities of the UAE in different areas that have contributed to managing the COVID-19 crisis. Specifically, the paper examines the functional capacity, analytical capacity, fiscal capacity, well-timed information-sharing capacity and political capacity of the UAE in addressing the pandemic.

The study on which this paper was based adopted a mixed-method approach to analyze policy capacities. The trajectory and timeframe of COVID-19 from February 2020 to February 2021 were observed intensively and included in the policy capacity analysis. The secondary dataset was collected from several sources and assessed using rapid content analysis to highlight the formal and institutional policy measures implemented during the crisis. To complement the policy analysis and understand the key role of policymakers, semi-structured interviews were conducted with local officials working in various line departments that formulate and implement policy strategies for the UAE government.

The findings of the study showed that although COVID-19 has severely impacted the UAE, the nation has effectively controlled the spread of the virus and reduced its mortality rate. The UAE government has taken swift policy actions concerning coercive control and mitigation based on a centralized decision-making style, the strengthening of administrative capacity by collaboration, coordination with different departments, successful communication with residents, the allocation of adequate financial resources and a high level of trust in the government by citizens.

This work contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the policy capacity approach to managing the crisis. The UAE case can be used by policymakers as comparative studies of policy designs, tools and capabilities that can be implemented to manage future pandemics and other crises.

This paper looks at a resource allocation technique used in the public sector reforms of Indonesia, a developing country, which involves decentralisation of fiscal responsibilities. The decentralisation occurred to quell secessionist aspirations of resource‐rich regions. To enable all regions to participate in regional autonomy, an elaborate system of equalisation grants was introduced to compensate for regional inequities. These grants rest on notions of ‘Western rationalism’ which value the role of calculative apparatus to achieve a sense of objectivity. We demonstrate that the equalisation formula used to determine grants is calculated using a series of estimates, proxies and indices. Hence, the formula, which determines the resource allocation for a region, obfuscates several compounding subjectivities. In this way, the politically contentious resource allocations can be perceived as objective so that the outcomes can be afforded legitimacy and authority necessary to assuage regional disputes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine resource allocation under the centrally sponsored scheme Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and its impact on development of elementary education in India. First, the author describes the current educational disparity across states in terms of state funding. Second, the author shows that interstate disparities in education resources have more to do with capacity of states to finance elementary education. For this, the author examines funding mechanism under SSA, focusing on principles of adequacy and absorptive rates. Third, the author analyzes the impact of additional funding on the progress of elementary education across states. Fourth, the author demonstrates how funding under SSA reinforces rather than reduces interstate disparity in school funding. Finally, the author concludes with certain policy implications for reforming federal transfers in Right to Education (RTE)-SSA, which can easily be extended to Rashtria Madhya Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) to be more responsive to educational inadequacy, effort and capacity across states.

The author uses box plots for illustrating interstate disparity across various indicators on financing and growth of elementary education. Box plots are good at portraying extreme values and illustrate differences between distributions. Because the thrust of the paper is examining difference in distribution across and within states, box plots appropriately portray the distribution of both. Further, coefficient of variation is estimated in education funding and its impact variables.

Interstate disparity in additional to the funding of SSA through discretionary transfers is examined by looking at two principles of inter-governmental transfers, viz., adequacy and absorptive rates. In a way, it appears that the educationally backward states getting the highest shares and also as per the requirement of the child population, but not necessarily so in terms of their relative proportions of enrolment, schools and teachers. Yet another revelation is that actual absorptive rates are much less than apparent absorptive rates. Unambiguously, additional resources coming from the Center for Development of Education can have a positive influence only after states have achieved a certain threshold level of absorptive capacities. As evidenced, fiscal disability is not compensated by transfers via SSA, as matching shares are uniform across states.

One significant limitations of the study is its use of administrative data. Often, administrative data from developing countries especially on social sector like education report inflated figures. The study uses primarily such but published secondary data sources.

Finally, the author suggests certain policy implications for reforming federal role in the current RTE-SSA, which can easily be extended to RMSA, a CSS in secondary education, to be more responsive to state effort and capacity.

Though SSA attempts to address regional imbalance, the accumulated initial advantage of better-off states with uniform norms under SSA funding widens the interstate disparity rather than reduce it. It is, hence, mandated to look at building capacities and enable states for a level-playing field.

It adds value to existing studies in two ways: rarely studies examine SSA expenditures and its impact on development and financing of elementary education, and examine a question on horizontal equalization mechanism whether additional allocation under SSA induce or reduce interstate disparity.

This study aims to explore the underlying patterns in tax innovation. Prior studies of local sales taxes still leave a gap in the literature and render the results inconclusive because the studies cover either state level or localities within a single state for a short period. To cover the gap, we assemble a dataset of counties in all states for FY1970-2006 but focus on 12 states not threatened by intra-jurisdictional competition. Our empirical analyses yield evidence that a county adopts local sales tax for political and economic rationale rather than fiscal condition. Accordingly, regional diffusion has positive effects on local sales tax adoption in a county. These findings contribute substantively to sales tax literature while confirming policy diffusion.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the political, economic and institutional determinants of capital assets condition ratio in American local governments using government-wide financial statements.

Based on capital assets data from the period of 2011–2016 for the 66 Florida counties as reported on their government-wide financial statements, the authors use a panel two-way fixed effects estimation and a dynamic panel generalized method of moments estimation.

The authors find that social-economic factors, fiscal capacity and democratic voters explain the capital assets condition ratio in Florida county governments.

The major findings of this study may only apply to county government in one single state. It may raise the issue of the external validity of our research. It provides policy recommendations for local public officials to maintain and upgrade their capital assets.

The study utilizes a new approach of capital assets condition ratio to measure county government investment in capital assets based on the government-wide financial statements.