Fiscal decentralization and government size: The role of democracy

This paper examines how the level of democracy in a country affects the relationship between fiscal decentralization and government size. We argue that political regimes, proxied by their democracy levels, are important for different decentralization theories to predict the impact of fiscal decentralization on government size. We test this argument using panel data from 76 developed and developing countries during 1972–2013. We find strong and robust evidence that fiscal decentralization is negatively associated with government size and that a higher level of democracy tends to mitigate the negative impact of fiscal decentralization. Therefore, our study contributes to the literature by offering a novel insight on mixed results regarding the relationship between fiscal decentralization and government size in the literature.     

Government size,decentralization and growth: empirical evidence from Italian regions

The aim of this study is to empirically assess the relationship among government size, decentralization and economic growth in Italian ordinary regions. The empirical analysis, based on a panel dataset on Italian regions, provides evidence in support of the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between public expenditure and economic growth, that depends on the degree of fiscal decentralization. In particular, according to our estimates on the specific Italian case, the optimal degree of decentralization is around 32%, while the optimal government size value is approximately 52%.     

Constitutions, regulations, and taxes: Contradictions of different aspects of decentralization

The paper confronts different aspects of decentralization: fiscal decentralization, post-constitutional regulatory decentralization, and constitutional decentralization – using a single dataset from the Russian Federation of the Yeltsin period as a politically asymmetric country and a variety of indicators. It finds no robust correlation between different decentralization aspects; moreover, three processes of devolution appearing in the same country at the same time seem to be driven by different (though partly overlapping) forces. Hence, a specific aspect of decentralization is hardly able to serve as a proxy for another one or for the overall decentralization process.     

Fiscal decentralization and corporate investment: empirical evidence from China

This paper examines the effect of fiscal decentralization on levels and efficiency of corporate investment. The results indicate that as the extent of local government fiscal decentralization increases, the level of new investment by firms under their jurisdiction rises. Furthermore, fiscal decentralization has an impact on corporate investment by aggravating over-investment rather than alleviating under-investment, leading to a situation whereby fiscal decentralization is negatively associated with investment efficiency at the level of the firm. Finally, the impact of fiscal decentralization on over-investment, under-investment and investment efficiency is not different between state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises, suggesting that economic leverages are the dominant government intervention measures. The findings imply that fiscal decentralization is another determinant of firm-level investment and corporate investment efficiency, which broadens the existing literature on the economic consequence of fiscal decentralization, resulting in important implications for policy-making.     

The impact of fiscal consolidations on the functional components of government expenditures

This paper analyses how the functional components and sub-components of government expenditures are affected by fiscal consolidations. A fixed-effects estimator is employed over a panel of 15 European Union countries during the period 1990–2012. The results show that spending on public services increases during fiscal consolidations, while spending on defence, public order, health, education and social protection is significantly cut. A more disaggregated analysis proves that fiscal consolidations are harmful for important social expenditures, in particular, for those related to citizens’ safety, health assistance, social protection and investment in human capital. This evidence is even stronger in a particular group of countries, known in the literature as PIIGS. Hence, fiscal consolidations can have important implications on the living standards of the more economically vulnerable citizens.     

Fiscal transparency,government effectiveness and government spending efficiency: Some international evidence based on panel data approach

The global financial crisis and the debt crisis of the EU countries revealed serious weaknesses in fiscal reporting. As a consequence, uncertainties regarding the real situation of the public accounts of the countries raised doubts in relation to the effectiveness of government policies. Since then, countries are undertaking reforms in order to improve fiscal transparency. This paper analyzes whether countries are making efforts to enhance fiscal transparency, and whether fiscal transparency affects government effectiveness and government spending efficiency. We consider two channels through which this effect occurs. The first channel is indirect and it works through public debt. The second channel is the direct effect that transparency has on government effectiveness and government spending efficiency once transparency enhances accountability and thus the task of resource allocation. We use a sample of 82 countries (68 developing and 14 developed) for the period 2006–2014, and panel data analysis. Comparing the scores of fiscal transparency between 2006 and 2014, we observe that approximately 80 per cent of the countries made efforts to improve fiscal transparency. The results suggest fiscal transparency is important to reduce public debt and to improve government effectiveness and government spending efficiency.     

Macroeconomic effects of government spending shocks: New narrative evidence from Canada

This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of government spending shocks in Canada for the period of 1949–2012. We construct a novel measure of news about exogenous government spending changes identified through the narrative approach. We use government documents, mostly the budget speech, to identify the size, timing, and principal motivation for all planned major federal government spending changes. To achieve identification, we consider those changes that are unrelated to the contemporaneous movements in the economy. The implied government spending multiplier estimates using our exogenous government spending news series are between 1.08 and 1.69.     

The impact of public employment on labour market performance: evidence from African countries

Using census data for Ghana, Mali and Mozambique, we study the long-term impact of public sector employment on local labour markets. We find that the public sector crowds out private employment and induces skilled workers to queue for a public job, thus increasing their unemployment rate. In addition, a growing public sector fosters employment in the tradable and nontradable sectors, remarkably for the unskilled, and the reallocation of unskilled workers away from agriculture.     

The effects of economic and political integration on fiscal decentralization: evidence from OECD countries

Abstract .  This paper examines the impact of economic and political integration on the vertical government structure. It argues that, by increasing the market size and the benefits of decentralized provision of public goods, integration triggered the recent process of decentralization in OECD countries. A panel analysis relates the degree of fiscal decentralization to economic and European integration, controlling for interregional heterogeneity, economies of scale, and institutions. The results mostly support a decentralizing effect of economic integration in general and of European integration in particular for heterogeneous EU countries, whereas participation of subnational governments in national decision-making is associated with more centralization.     

The impact of fiscal-monetary policy interactions on government size and macroeconomic performance

This paper analyzes the relationship between inflation, output and government size by reexamining the time inconsistency of optimal monetary and fiscal policies in a general equilibrium model with staggered timing structure for the acquisition of nominal money à la Neiss (Neiss, Katharine S. (1999), Discretionary Inflation in a General Equilibrium Model, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 31(3), pp. 357–374.), and public expenditure financed by means of a distortive tax. It is shown that, with predetermined wages, the equilibrium rate of inflation is above the Friedman rule and the equilibrium tax rate is below the efficient level. In particular, the discretionary rate of inflation is nonmonotonically related to the natural output, positively related to government size, and negatively related to the degree of central bank conservatism. Finally, a regime with commitment leads to welfare improvements over a regime with discretion.     

Fiscal decentralization and tax collection: evidence from the rural property tax in Brazil

The present paper investigates whether the decentralization of the rural land property tax (ITR) in Brazil increases the aggregate volume of tax collection from this source. We apply a difference-in-differences strategy where treatment is defined as the switch from a federal administration to the decentral management of the ITR by a municipality. The panel data from 2002 to 2017 show that decentralization leads to an average increase in overall ITR collection by about 42% in the first year, which rises to 109% in the 8th year. Our results are robust to balancing with entropy weights, the anticipation of treatment as well as the multi-period staggered timing of the ITR decentralization. Due to these peculiarities of our research design, we show that the increase in ITR collection is related to a more efficient tax management, i.e., a rigorous implementation and charge of tax duties.     

The impact of decentralization of health services on health outcomes: evidence from Canada

This article contributes to the limited empirical literature on the impact of decentralization on economic welfare by investigating the hypothesis that shifts towards more fiscal decentralization in health services would be accompanied by improvements in population health. Building on a conventional public finance model applied to health care, this hypothesis is tested on a panel data of the highly decentralized Canadian provinces during the period 1979 to 1995. The results of the exploratory empirical analysis presented in this article suggest that fiscal decentralization of health services in Canada has had a positive and substantial influence on the effectiveness of public policy in improving a population's health over the period studied.     

Effects of government expenditure on private investment: Canadian empirical evidence

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between government expenditures and private investment in Canada during the period 1961 to 2000. To this end, effects of five categories of government expenditures on investment are examined within the cointegration and error-correction framework. The empirical results show that government expenditure on education and health has positive effects whereas government expenditures on capital and infrastructure have negative effects on private investment. The other expenditure categories, including government expenditure on protection of persons and property, expenditure on debt charges, and expenditure on government and social services have no significant effects on private investment.I wish to thank Baldev Raj for his valuable comments on this study which have led to an important improvement in the paper. I would also like to thank my colleagues Tomson Ogwang, Paul Bowles, Jalil Safaei, and an anonymous referee for their comments. However, the usual disclaimer applies.First version Received: May 2002/Final version received:20 May 2004     

Dynamic effects of public investment: Vector autoregressive evidence from six industrialized countries

We analyze the dynamic relationship between public investment and output. Whereas existing empirical studies on the effects of public capital typically rely on single-equation models of the private sector, we investigate the role of public investment in an economy by examining impulse responses derived from vector autoregressions. Using data from six industrial countries, we specifically examine the following questions: does higher public investment lead to GDP increases; is there reverse causation from output to public investment; and what are the effects of expenditure-neutral budget shifts from public consumption to public investment. First version received: April 1999/Final version accepted: August 2000     

The effects of government expenditure on imports in the Eurozone reconsidered: evidence from panel data

This study examines the impact of government expenditure on imports. The empirical analysis is based on annual data of the euro area countries for the period 1995–2015. We employ econometric methods that mitigate heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. We provide empirical indications that the components of expenditure have different impact on imports demand. The findings of this study indicate that the import context of government expenditure is lower than the import context of others expenditure components. Finally, we find that an increase in government expenditure leads to an increase in imports; this implies that, ceteris paribus that it can lead to a deterioration of the trade balance.     

Measuring the impact of violence on macroeconomic instability: evidence from developing countries

Portuguese Economic Journal - Uncertainty induced by various economic and non-economic factors instigates macroeconomic instability. Macroeconomic instability, further, reduces predictability of a...     

The political and institutional determinants of fiscal adjustments and expansions: Evidence for a large set of countries

Using annual data for 60 countries over 1980–2014, we study the drivers of fiscal adjustments, expansions, and their duration. In contrast to most previous studies, the identification of these fiscal events relies on breaks in their data generating process. Our findings suggest that a few political and institutional variables play a role in determining the occurrence and the duration of fiscal adjustments and expansions. The results also highlight the importance of analyzing the likelihood of fiscal events together with their persistence. Factors that do not affect the occurrence of fiscal adjustments or expansions may influence their persistence once initiated.     

中国式分权下的区域创新绩效研究 ——基于资源获取与资源配置视角的分析

依据资源基础理论,财政自主权作为一种有价值、稀缺、不可完全模仿、组织可利用的财政资源,是地方政府取得良好区域创新绩效的来源;使用2007—2016年中国分省(自治区、直辖市)的面板数据,实证检验了财政分权对区域创新绩效的影响。研究发现:①财政分权对区域创新绩效具有显著的正向影响,在考虑财政分权异质性、创新绩效异质性、创新强度、内生性等问题后,结果依然稳健;②地方政府在运用支出自主权为获取良好的区域创新绩效时,存在"软约束"问题,即收入分权对支出分权与区域创新绩效之间的关系具有约束作用但不显著,可能的原因在于转移支付的"公共池"效应与创新锁定效应。     

The impact of personality traits on talents’ performance throughout development phases: empirical evidence from professional football

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses a critical gap in talent management research, i.e. the question of what determines high performance, by highlighting the importance of personality traits for the performance of talents who are trained within the strong situation of a pivotal talent pool – – the talent pool, of a German Bundesliga club. The findings illustrate the ubiquitous high level of certain personality traits among pivotal talents, their limited variance inter talent development phases as well as their significant impact on talent performance. As a complement to talents’ job-specific skill level, the personality facet of self-confidence is a consistent driver of overall performance, with resilience and job-specific creativity being essential in order to perform above peer-group level.     

On the impact of trade openness on growth: further evidence from OECD countries

This study attempts to examine empirically the implications of the degree of openness for total and individual factor productivity growth in a group of 19 OECD countries over the last three decades. The study combines both time series and cross-sectional data. The model employed is a generalization of the commonly used, growth-accounting model based on the concept of an aggregate production function in which the rate of economic growth is a function of capital and labour accumulation and total factor productivity. It is explicitly assumed that total factor productivity depends, in turn, upon the rate of export expansion. The model is then estimated using the random coefficients approach. While results generally indicate that the relative importance of trade openness on economic growth varies significantly across countries, they also indicate that the role of capital and labour accumulation in fostering economic growth varies with the degree of openness, cross-sectionally as well as across time.