Accounting practice,fiscal decentralization and corruption

In prior studies, accounting and decentralization corruption solutions have so far been analysed in isolation. In this article, we connect these two strands of literature on corruption. Understanding this connection is important because weak financial accounting and reporting systems can inhibit monitoring incentives and thus reduce decentralization benefits in countering corruption. We argue that the effectiveness of decentralization as an anti-corruption barrier is complemented by the quality of the accounting practice in a country. Using multiple sources of data, we find that decentralization has a positive and increasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with a high-quality accounting practice. In contrast, decentralization has a negative and decreasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with weak-quality accounting practices. These findings are robust to alternative measures of accounting, decentralization and corruption and to endogeneity tests. Our findings demonstrate the crucial information role of accounting in enhancing decentralization monitoring mechanisms and in thereby reducing corruption.     

Fiscal decentralization, revenue and expenditure assignments, and growth in China

Theory suggests that a close match between revenue and expenditure assignments at sub-national levels benefits allocative efficiency, and hence economic growth. That is, a convergence of revenue and expenditure assignments at sub-national levels of government should, according to the theory, be positively associated with a higher growth rate. In the case of China, this paper shows, divergence, rather than convergence, in revenue and expenditures at the sub-national level of government is associated with higher rates of growth. A panel dataset for 30 provinces in China is used to examine the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth over two phases of fiscal decentralization in China: (1) 1979–1993 under the fiscal contract system, and (2) 1994–1999 under the tax assignment system. The seeming contradiction between the theory and evidence in the China case is reconciled by taking into account the institutional arrangements that prevailed during the two phases of fiscal decentralization, in particular the inconsistency between the assumptions of the theory of fiscal decentralization and the institutional reality of China.     

Indonesian Local Government Spending,Taxing and Saving: An Explanation of Pre‐ and Post‐decentralization Fiscal Outcomes*

As a result of Indonesia's decentralization program, local governments have gained significantly more responsibility for service delivery, considerably larger fiscal resources, and much greater authority over the use of those resources than before. The present paper develops a simple budget model to describe and explain the substantial differences in pre‐ and post‐decentralization local government fiscal behavior related to spending, taxing and saving. During the post‐decentralization period special attention is paid to the fiscal behavior of natural resource rich regions. Among other things, the evidence suggests that: post‐decentralization local government spending is partly responsive to increasing needs and partly the subject of elite capture; local government taxation has become more aggressive under decentralization and appears to be mostly driven by local bureaucratic expectations related to routine overhead budgets; and the increased savings of local governments during the post‐decentralization period is determined to a large degree by delayed central government transfer payments.     

美国的城市化进程与现代城市规划联系的解读

回顾了美国城市化的独特发展历程和美国现代城市规划历史,并就二者之间的相互关系进行了探讨,以期对处于转型期的中国城市化发展有所启示和借鉴.     

我国住房抵押贷款证券化的必要性和可行性分析

随着我国房地产业的高速发展和单一的房地产银行融资手段，我国商业银行住房抵押贷款余额占其贷款余额的比重越来越高，从而使得我国商业银行面临的金融风险越来越大，而且单一的银行融资手段不利于我国房地产业的高速发展，住房抵押贷款证券化对我国房地产业和银行业的发展意义巨大。本文试分析了住房抵押贷款证券化这一金融创新工具在我国实行的必要性和可行性。     

地方政府的危机管理:责任、信息与制度

当前我国危机管理体制建设已经进入了一个新阶段。本文从危机管理的分权效率、信息响应等角度论证了地方政府在我国危机管理体系中的特殊地位,分析了效率导向下的地方政府危机管理事权划分问题,探讨了信息优势与危机管理资源配置的关系。本文指出,应从赋权与问责、事后管理、制度建设等方面重新审视和发展我国的地方政府危机管理体制。     

中国式的财政分权与宏观经济绩效——财政分权的宏观收益与成本分析

本文首先指出国外关于财政分权对于经济增长和通货膨胀的作用机制在中国不适用,然后提出了中国的财政分权对于经济增长和通货膨胀特有的作用机制,并且用协整检验方法实证的研究了1980-2005年间中国的财政分权对于济增长和通货膨胀的作用,得出财政分权改革以来中国式的财政分权在促进了经济增长的同时,也加剧了通货膨胀.     

计划、市场与分权--兼论我国分权化改革的经济体制背景

分权并不简单地与某一特定的经济体制联系在一起，但就自身性质而言．分权却是与计划经济体制相悖的，这就决定了在计划经济体制下推行分权化改革必将破坏计划经济集权的体制基础。分权与市场经济体制具有相容性，使得在市场经济中成功地进行分权化改革至少具备了理论上的可行性。在新旧体制并存的转轨时期．为了分权化改革的成功，我国应注意处理好分权、计划与市场之间的相互关系。     

Issues in decentralizing the provision of education

This paper analyzes some of the problems that arise in decentralizing education to the private sector. We concentrate on the difficulties that result from the heterogeneity of students and competition among schools in a location setting. We analyze two main issues, the resources expended by schools and the mix of students in schools, and report on results for two others, the location of schools and their number. For each of these, we investigate the extent to which decentralizing the provision of schooling results in an efficient allocation of resources, and consider the use of vouchers to improve the situation. Our analysis draws on elements of three distinct methodologies: the theory of clubs, location theory, and the theory of monopolistic competition. We find that private schooling will typically be inefficient, but that inefficiency may sometimes be corrected by appropriately designed vouchers.We would like to thank Olivier Debande, Jean-François Wen, two anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the 1st meeting of the Canadian Public Economics Study Group and the 51 st congress of the International Institute of Public Finance for helpful comments. Stefan Buergi and Luc Savard provided useful research assistance. We are also grateful to the SSHRCC and the FCAR for financial support.