Fiscal Decentralization and Poverty Alleviation in a Transitional Economy: The Case of Viet Nam

Intergovernmental fiscal arrangements may play an important role in ameliorating poverty in many countries. Successful poverty alleviation generally requires both ‘capacity improving’ and ‘safety net’ policies, and both types of policies may, to some extent, be implemented through, or affected by, intergovernmental transfers. From this perspective, we analyse the efficacy of intergovernmental fiscal arrangements in poverty alleviation in a transitional economy, Viet Nam. We argue that both general and specific transfers are needed for this purpose: the former to enable all provinces to provide a given basket of public services at a given tax-price by offsetting their revenue and cost disabilities and the latter to ensure that minimum levels of those public services provided by lower levels of government are targeted to the poor throughout the country.