A questão da excessiva carga tributária incidente sobre a economia brasileira tem estado no foco das discussões no cenário político e social, e por sua vez, não deixa de ser objeto de pesquisa na área acadêmica, sendo a Teoria da Tributação Ótima, um tema recorrente nos mais diversos cenários, especialmente, entre economistas, juristas e cientistas políticos. A teoria da tributação ótima tem como base teórica, o estudo do delineamento de um sistema tributário ideal (tax design), objetivando a análise de como determinada receita tributária pode ser arrecadada pelo governo ao menor custo para a sociedade, em termos de perda de eficiência. Entretanto, a Teoria da Tributação Ótima apresenta como o seu desafio, a compatibilização entre o critério da eficiência e o da capacidade contributiva, e consciente da importância do tema para a instituição de políticas tributárias, emergimos-nos nesta pesquisa que deu nascimento a presente dissertação. / The excessive tax burdens issue incident on the Brazilian economy has been the focus of discussion in the political and social scene, and it is still subject of research in the academic area, being the Optimal Tax Theory, a recurring theme in various scenarios, especially among economists, lawyers and political scientists. The tax authorities represented by the government, undeniably has the need to raise taxes to achieve your social objectives, however, the tax collection activity can lead to distortions in the economy, particularly on the economic decisions of agents, making mister find a better solution to mitigate such undesired effects on the productive economy, through the design of an ideal tax system is emerging - thus the Optimal Tax Theory. The Optimal Tax Theory has as its theoretical basis, the study of the design of an optimal tax system (tax design) , aiming at the analysis of how certain tax revenue can be collected by the government at minimum cost to society, reaching certain distributional goals a lower cost in terms of loss of efficiency. However, the Theory of Taxation Great features as its challenge to reconcile the efficiency criterion and the ability to pay, and we are aware of the economic and political \"mainstream\" that is the theme symbolizes for imposition of tax policies, we emerge in this study - that gave birth to this thesis.

<p>While competition among companies tends to be beneficial for the general public, this is not necessarily the case for competition among governments. Key in the fiscal competition theory is that the mobility of firms and households yields incentives for governments to aim to improve their relative position through successive undercutting of tax rates and welfare state arrangements. This mechanism has the potential to work as a disciplining device because it ensures that no jurisdiction is allowed to be grossly inefficient, because if it were grossly inefficient, mobile factors of production would move away. The main concern in the theoretical fiscal competition literature, however, has been that fiscal competition lowers government spending below their efficient levels. Another concern related to fiscal competition is that household mobility is likely to undermine attempts by governments to redistribute income. Empirical evaluation of both the existence and consequences of fiscal competition is the central topic of the thesis “An Empirical Analysis of Decentralization, Fiscal Competition and Welfare Policy”. </p><p>A particular focus of this thesis is on fiscal competition in welfare policy. With decentralized responsibility for the welfare benefit system in Norway, theory predicts that local governments will behave strategically in setting their welfare policy in order to avoid becoming ‘welfare magnets’. The key finding in Chapter 2 of this thesis is that Norwegian local governments in fact engage in such a ‘welfare game’. A local government will respond with reducing their welfare benefits when neighboring local governments reduce their welfare benefits. Encouraged by the finding in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 seeks to answer the question: Does Welfare Policy Affect Residential Choices? The analysis shows that Norwegian welfare recipients respond to changes in welfare policy by migrating. Local politicians concern about being to generous compared to their peers seem warranted. The analysis in Chapter 4 evaluates whether strategic interaction among Norwegian local governments in property tax decisions occurs. With limited mobility of the tax base and politically highly visible decisions, we interpret the strategic interaction found to be driven by yardstick competition, rather than competition for a mobile tax base. The final chapter differs from the rest in that it utilizes data from 18 OECD countries. The essay analyzes the effects of decentralization of government on the size and composition of government spending. Since jurisdictions with limited geographic scope (such as local governments) are, in general, more likely to face greater competitive pressures than larger ones (such as countries), it follows that the more fiscally decentralized countries are expected to experience stronger fiscal competition. One of the key findings is that decentralization of taxing powers is associated with less transfer spending, but unrelated to government consumption.</p> / Paper I reprinted with kind permission of Elsevier, Sciencedirect.com

This paper gives a review on the theoretical foundation for fiscal decentralisation and a status quo analysis of the intergovernmental relations in Mongolia. It consists of two parts. Part I briefly reviews the theories of fiscal decentralisation and its impact on the nations’ welfare considering the major challenges for a transition economy. Part II of the paper describes the general structure and scope of the government and examines the current fiscal autonomy in Mongolia focusing on the four main areas of intergovernmental relations. This paper concludes that local governments in Mongolia are still far away from having the political, administrative and fiscal autonomy. New approaches for the assignments of expenditures and revenues in Mongolia are urgently needed.

While competition among companies tends to be beneficial for the general public, this is not necessarily the case for competition among governments. Key in the fiscal competition theory is that the mobility of firms and households yields incentives for governments to aim to improve their relative position through successive undercutting of tax rates and welfare state arrangements. This mechanism has the potential to work as a disciplining device because it ensures that no jurisdiction is allowed to be grossly inefficient, because if it were grossly inefficient, mobile factors of production would move away. The main concern in the theoretical fiscal competition literature, however, has been that fiscal competition lowers government spending below their efficient levels. Another concern related to fiscal competition is that household mobility is likely to undermine attempts by governments to redistribute income. Empirical evaluation of both the existence and consequences of fiscal competition is the central topic of the thesis “An Empirical Analysis of Decentralization, Fiscal Competition and Welfare Policy”. A particular focus of this thesis is on fiscal competition in welfare policy. With decentralized responsibility for the welfare benefit system in Norway, theory predicts that local governments will behave strategically in setting their welfare policy in order to avoid becoming ‘welfare magnets’. The key finding in Chapter 2 of this thesis is that Norwegian local governments in fact engage in such a ‘welfare game’. A local government will respond with reducing their welfare benefits when neighboring local governments reduce their welfare benefits. Encouraged by the finding in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 seeks to answer the question: Does Welfare Policy Affect Residential Choices? The analysis shows that Norwegian welfare recipients respond to changes in welfare policy by migrating. Local politicians concern about being to generous compared to their peers seem warranted. The analysis in Chapter 4 evaluates whether strategic interaction among Norwegian local governments in property tax decisions occurs. With limited mobility of the tax base and politically highly visible decisions, we interpret the strategic interaction found to be driven by yardstick competition, rather than competition for a mobile tax base. The final chapter differs from the rest in that it utilizes data from 18 OECD countries. The essay analyzes the effects of decentralization of government on the size and composition of government spending. Since jurisdictions with limited geographic scope (such as local governments) are, in general, more likely to face greater competitive pressures than larger ones (such as countries), it follows that the more fiscally decentralized countries are expected to experience stronger fiscal competition. One of the key findings is that decentralization of taxing powers is associated with less transfer spending, but unrelated to government consumption. / Paper I reprinted with kind permission of Elsevier, Sciencedirect.com

<p>This dissertation consists of two chapters studying monetary and fiscal policy. In the first chapter, I study the welfare benefits and costs of increased central bank transparency in a dynamic model of costly information acquisition where agents can either choose to gather new costly information or remember information from the past for free. Information is costly to acquire due to an agent's limited attention. Agents face an intratemporal decision on how to allocate attention across public and private signals within the period and an intertemporal decision on how to allocate attention over time. The model embeds a coordination externality into the dynamic framework which motivates agents to be overly attentive to public information and creates the possibility of costly transparency. Interestingly, allowing for intratemporal and intertempral tradeoffs for attention amplifies (attenuates) the benefits (costs) of earlier transparency whereas it attenuates (amplifies) the benefits (costs) of delayed transparency. </p><p>The second chapter, co-authored with Barbara Rossi and Atsushi Inoue, studies the empirical effects of unexpected changes in government spending and tax policy on heterogeneous agents. We use data from the Consumption Expenditure Survey (CEX) to estimate individual-level impulse responses as well as multipliers for government spending and tax policy shocks. The main empirical finding of this paper is that unexpected fiscal shocks have substantially different effects on consumers depending on their age, income levels, and education. In particular, the wealthiest individuals tend to behave according to the predictions of standard RBC models, whereas the poorest individuals tend to behave according to standard IS-LM (non-Ricardian) models, due to credit constraints. Furthermore, government spending policy shocks tend to decrease consumption inequality, whereas tax policy shocks most negatively affect the lives of the poor, more so than the rich, thus increasing consumption inequality.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 172-197.

This paper estimates the effects of fiscal institutions on fiscal policy outcomes, addressing issues related to measurement and endogeneity in a novel way. Recently developed indices, based on partially ordered set theory, are used to quantify the stringency of fiscal rules. Identification of their effects is achieved by exploiting the exogeneity of institutional variables (checks and balances, government fragmentation, inflation targeting), which are found to be relevant determinants of fiscal rules. Our two-stage least squares estimates for (up to) 79 countries over the period 1985-2012 provide strong evidence that countries with more stringent fiscal rules have higher fiscal balances (lower deficits), lower interest rate spreads on government bonds, and lower output volatility. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Vyriausybė gali daryti įtaką tiek bendrai šalies ekonominei politikai, tiek konkrečiai nedarbui ir infliacijai, manipuliuodama savo pajamų ir išlaidų politikomis, siekdama paveikti visuminę paklausą, taigi ir gamybos apimtį. Vyriausybės pajamų ir išlaidų politikos yra jos fiskalinės politikos instrumentai. Fiskalinė disciplina derinama prie pasirinktų šalies ūkio vystymosi krypčių ir prioritetų. Šio darbo tikslas – reaguojant į kintančią ekonominę situaciją atlikti Lietuvos fiskalinės politikos analizę, iškelti pagrindinius privalumus ir trūkumus, numatyti trūkumų pašalinimo kryptis bei pateikti prognozes ateičiai. / Fiscal policy refers to the government`s spending and taxing behaviour and generaly is devided into few categories: decisions regarding government budget policypolicies related to government purchases of goods, servicies and labour; policies regarding taxes (for instance, tax rates are controlled by the government) and expenditures; policies regarding transfer payments (such as unemployment and social security benefits, wellfare payments ant state pensions); decisions involving state debt managing and administration. Fiscal discipline is strongly affected by general state economical goals and strategy. The main goal of the work is to analyse the mechanism of Lithuanian fiscal policy, find and emphasize main qualities and imperfections, the ways to avoid regress and create personal forecasts for future according to variable economical situation.

Este trabajo proporciona por primera vez estimaciones empíricas sobre el multiplicador del gasto del Sector Público Nacional de Argentina, utilizando una metodología de vectores autorregresivos estructurales (SVARs). Al mismo tiempo, producto de contar con la clasificación económica del gasto realiza una contribución más que interesante diferenciando el multiplicador según se trate de gasto en consumo o gasto en capital (o inversión pública). Los resultados muestran la enorme importancia de dicha diferenciación en cuanto el gasto el consumo tiene efectos moderados sobre el producto, mientras que la inversión pública tiene efectos macroeconómicos mucho más expansivos, producto de las sinergias que la misma genera con el sector privado. A su vez van en línea con resultados previos para otros países en desarrollo y son consistentes con el resultado esperado dada la tradicional prociclicidad de la política fiscal del país. Se pone de manifiesto la importancia de pensar el sector público y el privado como complementos más que como sustitutos (o rivales) y la necesidad de abandonar las políticas fiscales procíclicas.

The subject of fiscal federalism has been associated for many years with economics, in particular with the study of public finance. However, its political dimension is often neglected. This is the case in the conventional study of fiscal federalism in Malaysia, which focuses on the economic perspective. The aim of this thesis is to examine the design, implementation and problem of fiscal federalism in Malaysia as a political process in promoting national integration and the unity of the federation. This research is based on an intrinsic case study approach as the subject of fiscal federalism attracts strong public interest, which requires an in-depth study of the case. In doing this research, a combination of narrative report, statistical analysis and interview has been used. One of the significant findings of this research is that the design of fiscal federalism in Malaysia is essentially based not on the federal spirit, but on the strong central government theme imposed by the colonial authority concomitant to the historical and political background to the formation of the federation. As a result, today, fiscal federalism displays a federal bias and mounting centripetal forces, even to the extent of coercion on the states, making the federal government grow bigger and more dominant, financially and politically. Thus, the working of fiscal federalism depends not on what is enshrined in the Constitution and federal spirit but on centre-state political interactions. If states' politics are not affiliated with the ruling political party that control the federal government, federal-state fiscal relations will be strained. The effects are felt in petroleum royalties payments, disbursement of grants, borrowing and other form of fiscal 'sanction' imposed by federal executive supremacy. On the other hand, if the states are ruled by the same political party, they become financially complacent. To all intents and purposes, the exclusive control of revenue sources by the centre has enabled the federal government to prevent most states from falling to the opposition party, thus ensuring a majority in parliament. The outcome is that the states are subordinated and subservient to the centre and hence the futures of the states are subject to the federal government's 'unilateral action'. In the long run, Malaysia is moving towards becoming a unitary state. This is the antithesis of the federal spirit, and thus becomes a threat to the federation. Therefore, fiscal federalism is a crucial acid test of the viability of any federation. Fortunately, thus far, Malaysian federalism had passed the test, though the states find more pain than gain. In the final analysis, this thesis suggests that structural reform of the federal-states' financial arrangements should be undertaken in order to strengthen the states' finances and subsequently reduce the states' dependence on the largesse of the federal government for funds.