Search results

Even though fiscal autonomy plays a role as one of the prerequisite conditions for fiscal decentralization, there has been little research into why fiscal autonomy is important or how it works for subnational governments. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of fiscal autonomy by using a panel dataset of US state governments from 2001 to 2013.

According to the results of general method of moments, the author find that fiscal autonomy leads to reducing volatility in total expenditures.

It indicates that fiscal autonomy is necessary for state governments performing one of the three Musgravian role of government (e.g. stabilization). However, when we look at the more detailed relationship between fiscal autonomy and volatility by applying expenditures from major categories such as capital outlay, general expenditure and public welfare, this study finds no statistically significant results. Interestingly, balanced budget requirement and tax and expenditure limitation indicate different effects on expenditure volatility, even though they belong to the same institutional factors.

This paper is meaningful because it can support the importance of fiscal autonomy on fiscal performance.

Brazilian federalism was important in the political game of combating the pandemic for three reasons. First, Brazil's public health system depends heavily on intergovernmental relations between Union, states, and municipalities because there is a policy portfolio based on federative cooperation. Second, the subnational governments' autonomy to act against COVID-19 was constantly questioned by the Federal Government – the conflict between the President and governors was a key piece in all health policy. Finally, states and local governments were primarily responsible for policies to fight against pandemic, but the absence and/or wrong measures taken by the Federal Government (such as the delay in purchasing vaccines) generated intergovernmental incoordination, increased territorial inequality, and reduced the effectiveness of subnational public policies, especially those linked to social isolation. In this context, Brazilian federalism played a dual role in the pandemic. On the one hand, the federative structure partially succeeded in averting an even worse scenario, mitigating the impact of mistaken presidential decisions. The role of subnational governments, especially of the states, was critical as a counterweight to federal decisions. On the other hand, the President actively acted against governors and mayors and, above all, sought to weaken intergovernmental articulations within the Unified Health System (SUS), the federative model designed three decades ago. One could say that the federative actors, such as the Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal – STF) and subnational governments, were the main obstacles for the Bolsonarist antiscientific agenda. The success of this reaction to President Bolsonaro's negationist populism was partial, but the results of the fight against COVID-19 would have been much worse without these federalist barriers.

If intergovernmental relations are necessary in normal times, it should be even more required to face complex intergovernmental problem (CIP) as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, collaboration between governments depends on institutional rules as well as on political will. To discuss this issue, the analytical model is based on two dimensions: institutional design and political agency. As for the first dimension, since COVID-19 pandemic is considered as a CIP, three aspects are relevant when discussing how federations can organize the coordination between different levels of government: autonomy of subnational governments, mechanisms of coordination, and policy portfolio. As for political agency, the performance of political leadership (national presidents and governors) will be analyzed. The possibility of sharing collective goals across the federation is also a consequence of the political agency that takes place within the institutional systems of each federation. In short, it seeks to analyze the relationship between institutional design and political agency to deal with this CIP in five American federations.

Decentralization has been a continual focus of attention of both scholars and practitioners for more than half a century. Even though there is a general agreement on what decentralization is, there is no consensus about how it should be measured. This article builds on the existing body of literature that specifies three major dimensions of decentralization: political, administrative, and economic. The article offers a measurement model that unifies these dimensions in a meaningful manner that allows for comparison across countries. The proposed model is then empirically tested using confirmatory factor analysis of a data set of 37 countries over the period 2000-2009. This factor analysis reveals that there are, in fact, only two dimensions of the decentralization process. The newly developed modelʼs index illustrates that the conceptually challenging processes of decentralization can be accurately measured and analyzed. The index can be used for hypothesis testing of the causality role of decentralization.

This is an attempt to outline a sociological, and in particular a theoretical response to the challenge of European integration and its associated socio‐spatial restructuring.

An attempt will be made to shed light on the course and pattern of the decentralization process by analyzing the historical development of local government and the territorial-administrative reform of 2015-2020 in Albania and the factors that have been shaping it. The scope is to understand the impact of the reform elements on the subnational governments and in general their overall impact on the government. The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap in the existing literature for Albania and at offering some insights on the administrative-territorial reform. Furthermore, it will contribute to the current debate on fiscal decentralization in South Eastern European (SEE) countries and the public management model implemented after the last reforms.

The first section analyzes the historical development of local government reforms from the 1990s to today and will help to identify if there is instrumentalism advocacy. The second section explains the determinants of the local government’s fiscal autonomy in Albania of the period from 2003 to 2016. Three indicators are used as proxies for fiscal decentralization: the proportion of subnational expenditure over national expenditure, of total subnational revenues over total revenues of central government and the indicator of own subnational revenues over total revenues of the central government. The data from the budget and the revised budgets are then compared.

Despite Albania’s commitment to decentralize its government functions, there is still work to do. The territorial and administrative reform has not generated the expected results. Almost 90 percent of the revenues still come from the central government’s unconditional transfers. Therefore, the Albanian Government should build capacities and skills, and train the employees of each level of government that currently benefit from international assistance.

The analysis represents a single case study on the territorial-administrative reform in Albania. Its implementation started in 2015 and it is probably too early to discuss outcomes. However, it might be useful to analyze the first results after a two-and-a-half-year period of implementation of reforms. Despite contributing to the existing gap in the literature, additional research will be necessary to better understand the decentralization process not only in Albania, but in all SEE countries.

It is necessary to first understand the lack of initial output, as well as the various challenges faced, in order to take the corrective measures on time.

This paper discusses in detail the reform adopted and the progress made by the Albanian local government units. The reform attempts to develop better relationships between the central and local governments and hence improve their service delivery, transparency and accountability. This paper is the first one that is attempting to analyze the initial output of the territorial-administrative reform of 2015-2020.

In this exploratory multiple case study, we aim to compare the internationalization of two state-owned enterprises (SOEs) owned by subnational governments with three owned by central governments in Latin America. This study provides a contextualized answer to the question: What are the differences in the internationalization of subnationally owned SOEs compared to central SOEs? This study finds that the speed and diversification of these two types of SOEs’ internationalization differ because they have a different expansion logic. Subnationally owned SOEs have a gradual and diversified expansion following market rules. Central government’s SOEs are specialized and take more drastic steps in their internationalization, which relates to non-market factors.

This study builds an exploratory qualitative comparative case analysis that uses multiple sources of data and information to develop a comprehensive understanding of SOEs through process tracing.

The study posits some assumptions that are confirmed in the case analysis. This study finds relevant differences between sub-national (SSOEs) and central authority (CSOEs’) strategies. SSOEs’ fewer resources and needs to increase income push them to follow a gradual market-driven internationalization and to diversify abroad. CSOEs non-gradual growth is justified by non-market factors (i.e. national politics). CSOEs do not diversify abroad due to the broader set of constituencies they have to face.

Given the exploratory comparative case study of this research, the findings are bounded by the particularities of the cases and their region (Latin America). This paper and its findings can be useful for theory building but it does not claim any generalization capacity.

This study adds complexity into the SOEs phenomenon by distinguishing between different types of SOEs. This paper contributes to the study of subnational phenomena and its effect in SOEs’ internationalization process, which is an understudied topic. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is among the first studies that explore subnational SOEs in Latin America.

With the global financial crisis, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) experienced its own unraveling of macro-financial imbalances and thus presents an interesting case to analyze the underlying fragilities in federal governments. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evolution of fiscal policy in the UAE at consolidated and subnational levels in the run-up and after the crisis, and provide pertinent insights about the importance of policy coordination in other federal fiscal systems – and monetary unions, as brought to light by the recent developments in Europe.

In measuring the cyclicality of fiscal balances at the consolidated and emirate level in the UAE, this paper uses the non-hydrocarbon primary budget balance, excluding interest spending and hydrocarbon revenues, investment income of the sovereign wealth fund, scaled by non-hydrocarbon GDP. The cyclically adjusted primary balance is estimated by deducting cyclical components from the actual balance. It is important to correct for cyclical changes because the budget balance tends to vary endogenously according the state of the economy – deteriorating during a bust and improving in a boom. Furthermore, since hydrocarbon revenues are dependent on the erratic behavior of hydrocarbon prices, the cyclically adjusted non-hydrocarbon primary balance is computed, using the elasticity of non-hydrocarbon revenues and primary expenditures relative to non-hydrocarbon GDP, to assess whether fiscal policy exacerbates economic fluctuations in the UAE at the aggregate and emirate levels.

The empirical findings show that procyclical fiscal policies prior to the crisis reinforced the financial sector cycle, exacerbated the economic upswing, and thereby contributed to the build-up of macro-financial vulnerabilities. The paper also sets out policy lessons to develop a rule-based fiscal framework that would help strengthen fiscal policy coordination between the various layers of government and ensure long-term fiscal sustainability and a more equitable intergenerational distribution of wealth.

The lack of fiscal policy coordination among subnational governments complicates macro-economic management at the federal level. Since the UAE has a pegged exchange rate regime and consequently a limited scope to use monetary policy, the burden of macro-economic stabilization falls on fiscal policy. Accordingly, this paper shows that procyclical fiscal policies prior to the crisis reinforced the “financial accelerator” effect, exacerbated the economic cycle, and thereby contributed to the build-up of economic and financial vulnerabilities in the UAE.