According to data from official state institutions analyzed in the study, the policy on balanced regional development is facing serious challenges and is yet to engage in serious efforts in the future. Evidence on the unfavourable situation is found in data whereby more than half of investments...

The aim of this paper is to determine to what extent and how federal taxes affect local tax decisions. Testing the impact of an increase in the federal tax on horizontal tax competition with Canada-US data for 1984--1994, we find evidence that an increase in federal tax affects horizontal tax...

This study examines whether municipal mergers reduce public expenditure by examining the marginal treatment effect (MTE) of municipal mergers. Extant papers in the literature have paid little attention to bias from self-selection among municipal mergers or to heterogeneity in the treatment...

The second generation fiscal federalism (SGFF) approach is used as a reference to analyze the political and fiscal institutional design of Bolivia’s decentralization model and its evolution. Subnational public finance data up to 2008 is used to verify that decentralization of expenditure was...

We develop a model with two provinces, producing two goods: one mobile and the other not. The mobile good is taxed according to the destination principle by the local government; it is also federally taxed. People decide to buy the good at the most advantageous price. Namely they can buy...

Article about the problems of municipal governments related to fiscal consolidation in the Russian regions and the construction of the vertical of power during the first presidency of Vladimir Putin. The author analyzes the impact of the decline of the financial base of the city governments and...

The second generation fiscal federalism approach is used as a reference to analyze the political and fiscal institutional design of Bolivia’s decentralization model and its evolution. Sub-national public finance data up to 2008 is used to verify that decentralization of expenditure was higher...

This paper describes institutions of direct democracy between 1997 and 2003 in 26 Swiss cantons (states), specifically the statutory initiative and referendum, the constitutional initiative, and the fiscal referendum. In particular, it discusses their applications, but also the legal...

We survey the empirical literature on fiscal decentralization (FD) and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of shifting fiscal responsibilities to sub national governments. We suggest several conclusions: First, there are large disagreements regarding the influence of FD on the size of...

The number of municipalities in Japan has decreased from 3,232 in 1999 to 1,820 in 2006 because of municipal mergers, called Heisei-no-Daigappei. This paper estimates the effects of municipal mergers in Japan’s local public expenditure. In order to evaluate the expenditure of municipal...