The Albanian approach to municipal borrowing: From centralized control to market discipline

Local governments (LGs) in transitional countries face pressing infrastructure needs, which, given the severe shortcomings of traditional funding, make a strong case for debt financing. This article explores the case study of Albania, using document analysis and interviews with mayors, civil servants, citizens and investors. We go beyond an analysis of technical aspects (macroeconomic conditions and legal constraints on borrowing) to include ‘soft’ elements (political and managerial issues, attitudes of key actors), with the aim of highlighting the approach adopted under current policies and the approach that should be adopted. Favorable macroeconomic conditions and the completeness of the legal framework have motivated policy‐makers to choose the market model. Their aim is to develop the financial market rapidly; however, the development of sound management systems at the local level is largely ignored. We argue that the role of managerial capacities, public accountability and professional mechanisms is not adequately taken into account. Future policies need to make the best use of some early experiences of public participation and build upon the extensive training in accounting and auditing issues provided to local civil servants in order to exploit other models of municipal borrowing control. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Financial Sustainability as a Driver for Transparency and E-Democracy: A Comparative Study in Italian and Spanish Local Governments

Today expectations of accountability and trustworthiness in governing entities is greater than ever before. The process of change has been given impetus by new information and communication technologies resulting in e-government and e-democracy. This research aims to analyze transparency and democratic participation in Italian and Spanish LGs. The web pages of Italian and Spanish LGs with more than 100,000 inhabitants are analyzed using twenty determinants of fiscal transparency and eight determinants of e-democracy. Results show considerable similarity between Italian and Spanish LGs with regards to the disclosure of financial information, while the adoption of e-democracy tools requires further development in both countries.     

Can alternative service delivery save cities after the Great Recession? Barriers to privatisation and cooperation

ABSTRACT

Cities continue to face fiscal challenges after the Great Recession and alternative service delivery is being emphasised as a solution. How promising is alternative service delivery as a solution and what are its barriers? Regression analyses using 2012 survey data of US local governments show that local governments manage procedural barriers, but structural barriers of economy and demography hinder privatisation and cooperation. Places with a housing bust (measured as decline in home values) can use privatisation, but not places with more or increased poverty. Cooperation is more promising for places with increased poverty, but lack of a willing partner hinders this spatially constrained tool. Neither cooperation nor privatisation is promising for places with low home values. State governments must level the playing field for localities with weak economies if market approaches to service delivery are the main tools for local governments to survive fiscal stress.     

日本财政投融资体制改革的特点及借鉴

日本的财政投融资体制曾经对日本经济的发展产生过重要影响。但是,随着日本经济的不断发展,财政投融资的僵化体制已经越来越不适应新的经济发展形势。在这一背景下,以市场筹集资金为核心的财政投融资体制改革便展开了。此次改革有如下特点：总体规模逐步缩小;资金来源更加多样化;资金运用方向有所调整;加强信息披露引入政策成本分析机制等。从日本财政投融资体制改革中我们可以借鉴的是改革方向的市场化、信息的透明和资金的重点集中投放。     

Oil,elections and fiscal transparency

How does governments’ ability to gain financing from oil income affect their behaviour? Numerous studies have explored the effects of oil wealth on countries’ political characteristics, especially the level of democracy. Oil has also been associated with a significant electoral incumbency advantage across different political regimes. However, the relationship between oil wealth and incumbent governments’ behaviour, including election-year fiscal manipulation, has been studied to a lesser extent. This article argues that higher oil rents increase election-year public spending as they provide national governments both with direct revenue and increased financing opportunities. However, fiscal transparency mitigates this effect. Consequently, oil-induced electoral budget cycles decrease as fiscal transparency increases. Using a high-quality measure of fiscal transparency in a panel of countries, robust evidence in favour of this argument is found. The findings suggest that many of the previous results on the political effects of oil, including incumbency advantage, might run through an election-year spending channel, and that fiscal institutions might matter substantially for the political effects of oil.     

UK Governance: From Overloading to Freeloading

The UK's ongoing political turbulence has prompted a reprise of debates from the 1970s when many concluded the country was ungovernable. Then, the most influential diagnosis conceptualised the UK's governance problem as one of ‘overloading’ caused by the electorate's excessive expectations. This article argues that these accounts overlooked another phenomenon besieging UK governance during this period. This phenomenon was freeloading: the withering of government capacity deriving from the ability of actors to enjoy the benefits of citizenship without altogether contributing to the cost. In the interim, these problems have become endemic, not least because of the unspoken but discernible policy of successive governments to turn the UK into a tax haven. High‐profile scandals involving prominent individuals and corporations, plus the failure to clamp down on them have reinforced the perception that the UK's political system is geared towards the rich and the powerful at the expense of the marginalised majority.     

The early modern origins of contemporary European tax outcomes

What explains variation in tax outcomes between European states? Previous studies emphasise the role played by political institutions, but focus mostly on the input side of politics – how access to power and policy making is structured – and the institutions of relatively recent times. It is argued in this article that output‐side institutions related to the implementation of political decisions also matter and have deep institutional origins. As the classic literature has argued, the early modern period from 1450 to 1800 was formative for the development of fiscal capacity, but European states diverged in the stock of capacity they acquired. This article tests whether these differences still affect contemporary tax outcomes using a novel measure of fiscal capacity, based on the age, extent and quality of state‐administered cadastral records. The empirical analysis shows that, on average, countries with higher early modern fiscal capacity have higher tax revenue today, compared to countries with lower early modern fiscal capacity. This association is robust to different model specifications and alternative measurements. The findings have important policy implications as they indicate how deeply the current fiscal problems of the continent are entrenched, but also point to what needs to be prioritised within ongoing tax reforms.     

Do citizens care about government debt? Evidence from survey experiments on budgetary priorities

Ever since the Great Recession, public debt has become politicised. Some research suggests that citizens are fiscally conservative, while other research shows that they punish governments for implementing fiscal consolidation. This begs the question of whether and how much citizens care about debt. We argue that debt is not a priority for citizens because reducing it involves spending and tax trade-offs. Using a split-sample experiment and a conjoint experiment in four European countries, we show that fiscal consolidation at the cost of spending cuts or taxes hikes is less popular than commonly assumed. Revenue-based consolidation is especially unpopular, but expenditure-based consolidation is also contested. Moreover, the public has clear fiscal policy priorities: People do not favour lower debt and taxes, but they support higher progressive taxes to pay for more government spending. The article furthers our understanding of public opinion on fiscal policies and the likely political consequences of austerity.     

Intergovernmental transfers and fiscal equalization across the north-eastern states of India: Evidence from panel data

While numerous studies have tried to analyze the impact of intergovernmental transfers in fostering fiscal equalization in India, there need to be more studies in the context of north-eastern (NE) states. Situating in a geographically isolated and economically backward region, the states of NE India depend heavily on central fiscal transfers to meet expenditures and to promote various economic activities in the region. One of the essential objectives of these transfers is to achieve fiscal equity. Hence, the study attempts to analyze the fiscal equalizing nature of the intergovernmental transfers across NE India during 1991–2019. The coefficient of variation (CV) analysis results indicates that although fiscal transfers reduced the magnitude of disparity in the own-source revenue across the NE states, a significant amount of disparity still exists in the resource base across these states. The regression analysis findings suggest that the transfers across these states need to be more fiscal equalizing. The per capita gross state domestic product emerges as a positive and significant in predicting per capita transfers, and hence it questions the progressivity of central transfers. When assigning the interstate share of transfers, more weight should be placed on fiscal equalizing factors such as per capita income. The Finance Commission of India should emphasize fiscal equalizing criteria when allocating weights and recommending transfers to the NE States. Additionally, states with low incomes should be recognized in plan schemes.     

离职竞业限制违约金问题探究

目前,很多离职竞业限制合同没有约定给付劳动者补偿金,却约定了劳动者违反竞业限制义务时应承担的违约金责任,对于这样的违约金条款是否具有法律约束力存在激烈的意见分歧。我国现行立法对此未做明确的规定,一些地方为便于执法则做出了各自不同的规定,导致司法实践中的法律裁决也存在巨大的差异。从合同权利的性质、当事人的法律地位以及法律维护合同实质公平的角度来看,离职竞业限制合同应当无效,违约金责任也不具有法律效力。在现实经济活动中,已约定补偿金的离职竞业限制合同,几乎同时也约定了劳动者违反竞业限制义务时的违约金责任,一些合同在给予劳动者较低的补偿金的同时,却要求劳动者违约时须承担巨额的违约金。如此一来,该违约金应如何处理就成了这类案件争议的焦点。对此,应在立法上弥补相应的缺失,明确规定无补偿金条款时该离职竞业限制合同无效,则违约金条款也无须履行;对于已约定补偿金的,也应提出补偿金数额方面的强制性要求,并明确违约金可调整的样态。