Do formula-based intergovernmental transfer mechanisms eliminate politically motivated targeting? Evidence from Ghana

Various countries have adopted formulas for determining intergovernmental transfers as a strategy to limit the role of political considerations in resource allocation. In this paper, we investigate a formula-based system of allocating resources from a central government to local governments to determine whether the political characteristics of recipient areas have any bearing on their allocation. Specifically, we study the sharing of resources of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) in Ghana amongst the country's district governments over the period 1994 to 2005. We find evidence that the mechanism does not eliminate politically motivated targeting of the grants. Per capita DACF grants were higher in districts where vote margins in the previous presidential election were lower, suggesting that swing districts were targeted. We find evidence that DACF formula indicators and their weighting were chosen and amended to produce politically desired patterns of transfers.     

Public expenditure, international specialisation and agglomeration

It is widely recognised that public-sector purchasers tend to favour domestic suppliers. We study the consequences of such home-biased public procurement on international specialisation. Using a general-equilibrium model with a monopolistically competitive sector, we find that a country will specialise in that sector if it has relatively large home-biased procurement (the “pull” effect). Furthermore, home-biased procurement can counter agglomeration forces in that sector and thereby attenuate the overall degree of international specialisation (the “spread” effect). Our empirical analysis, conducted on input-output data for the European Union, yields supporting evidence for the pull effect and some support for the spread effect.     

Tariff Structure,Trade Expansion,and Canadian Protectionism, 1870–1910

Canada's trade policy at the end of the 19th century is commonly viewed as protectionist and extremely costly. In this paper, we employ the Anderson‐Neary Trade Restrictiveness Index to re‐examine this view. Based on product‐level customs data, we show that Canadian trade policy between 1870 and 1910 was more restrictive than previously understood, but created smaller welfare losses than previously believed. These results are primarily driven by high tariffs on inelastic, non‐competing import goods. Although Canada's tariff structure becomes more restrictive over the period, our findings indicate it was not as protectionist or as costly as once thought.     

A directly democratic and Federal Europe

This paper endeavors to take up the neglected aspects of federalism and direct democracy. It emphasizes the mutual dependence of the two for reaching the goals of efficiency and trust. Direct democracy is seen to preserve federalism, but even more importantly, federalism is taken to enable and to preserve effective direct democracy. Empirical evidence is adduced showing in particular that direct democracy leads to higher efficiency in the sense of lowering transaction costs. A proposal for a novel combination of federalism and direct democracy—which is called FOCJ (the acronym for Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions)—is suggested for Europe.Financial Supported by the Swiss National Fund (Project No. 12-42480-9) is greatefully acknowledge.     

Tax incentives in fiscal federalism: an integrated perspective

Abstract Models of fiscal federalism rarely account for the efficiency implications of intergovernmental fiscal ties for federal tax policy. This paper shows that fiscal institutions such that federal tax deductibility, vertical revenue‐sharing, and fiscal equalization (being common features of existing federations) encourage local taxation, but may discourage federal taxation. Furthermore, the structure of public spending is skewed towards local spending. We also show that, when considering Leviathan governments, fiscal institutions reduce confiscatory taxation by the federal government. The result is contrary to the Cartelization Hypothesis ( Brennan and Buchanan 1980 ). Finally, we characterize the efficient design of intergovernmental fiscal ties.     

Corruption and local democratization in Indonesia: The role of Islamic parties

Indonesia has a tradition of corruption among local officials who harass and collect bribes from firms. This paper examines whether corruption is affected by local democratization and by the party composition of local assemblies. Democratization occurred in 1999 and decentralization in 2001. We have firm-level data for 2001 and 2004. The 2001 data benchmark corruption at the time of decentralization. We find that corruption declines between 2001 and 2004 overall, but much less so in districts with more secular party as opposed to Islamic party representatives in district assemblies. For a larger sample of districts, correspondingly, we find that corruption in 2004 is more in districts which voted more in favor of secular party representatives in the first elections in 1999. We argue that the effects seem to be causal, over above any effects of changing religiosity and economic circumstances across districts.     

On government centralization and fiscal referendums

Several authors have argued that a centralization of fiscal powers in a federation is less likely to occur if citizens have to approve a change in the assignments of responsibilities by a popular referendum. This outcome may be due to the fact that logrolling is more difficult under direct than under representative democracy. It may also be caused by citizens’ fear that a centralization of fiscal authority facilitates the extraction of rents by the government or the legislature. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that centralization is less likely under referendum decision-making in the unique institutional setting of Switzerland. Using a panel of Swiss cantons from 1980 to 1998, the empirical analysis provides evidence that referendums induce less centralization of fiscal activities.     

Sectoral structure, heterogeneous plants, and international trade

I examine the impact of trade policy on manufacturing plant behavior by developing a methodology that addresses both plant heterogeneity and intersectoral resource reallocation. A plant-level microsimulation based upon the industry structure of Bernard et al. (2003) is linked to a multi-sector computable general equilibrium model. This linkage permits an analysis of plant-level behavior that encompasses the trade-induced changes in factor prices and consumption patterns. The methodology is applied in the examination of two counterfactual trade policy scenarios on the Chilean manufacturing sector. The results suggest that trade liberalization leads to a reallocation of output toward the most productive producers. This result is driven by two primary causes: (a) a reduction in the price of inputs that promotes the expansion of output by the most productive producers and (b) increased competition from overseas that drives the least productive producers out of the market.     

Electoral regime and trade policy

We study how trade protection varies with the electoral rules for legislative representation. In particular, we investigate different hypotheses about why trade policy differs between countries with legislatures elected by a plurality election rule in single member constituencies and legislatures elected by a proportional, or party-list, rule. Our results, which are in line with the existing literature, show that countries with list-PR systems tend to have lower trade barriers than countries with majoritarian systems. We expand on this literature by looking at the mechanisms through which this correlation can be explained. Our findings indicate that, contrary to existing theory, neither constituency size nor party strength are important when explaining this correlation. Country size does matter, but does not explain the whole of the correlation.     

Asymmetric adjustment costs in simple general equilibrium models

This paper demonstrates that the introduction of asymmetric adjustment costs in a simple general equilibrium framework establishes a meaningful link between factor price determination and output determination, breaking the analytically convenient dichotomy of the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson model. The possibility of trade between seemingly similar countries that differ in their adjustment technologies is visited.     

Global factor trade with differentiated factor prices and factor intensities

Abstract .  Relaxing the assumption of internationally identical factor intensity techniques in the HOV model creates two challenges. First, computing actual factor intensity techniques of different countries requires detailed input-output tables and factor usage data, which are not always available. Second, determinants of the factor intensity technique differences across countries need to be identified. This paper explores the role of relative factor price differences in the determination of factor intensity technique differences across countries and proposes an inferring method that infers factor intensity techniques of different countries based on relative factor price differences. The HOV model is then modified accordingly.