The thesis is focused on the evaluation of budget selected municipalities, especially in the context of the law of RUD and its changes in recent years. In the theoretical part are included the main views on municipal financing systems in terms of centralization and decentralization and also outlined the development of the redistribution of taxes in the Czech Republic and its major impact on the communities in the Czech Republic using aggregate data. Here, the author points out, that it would be better to consider greater fiscal decentralization, together with fiscal autonomy. However, it doesn't go well with recent changes in RUD in the Czech Republic. The theoretical part is then analyzed selected municipalities (representing various size groups of municipalities in the Czech Republic) regarding the development and structure of their budgets and major influences having an impact. Even from these analyzes it is quite obvious that the Czech Republic is rather greater tax depending on the state of municipalities (which relates to the growth of shared taxes) and thereby weakening the share of own revenues for municipalities. This is the opposite trend of development compared to other western countries. The Czech Republic also occurs (through laws RUD) to strengthen revenues for small and medium-sized communities, often at the expense of larger ones. These changes could actually lead to weakening of cooperation between the public and private sectors, as well as an inefficient financing and management of public funds for municipalities in the country.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The prime aim of this thesis is to examine the link between fiscal decentralization and local financial governance in fiscally empowered woreda administrations (districts) of the Amhara region in Ethiopia. Local financial governance has been one of the reasons and arguably the crucial one that drives many countries to subscribe to fiscal decentralization. The presumption is that public finance mobilization and spending can be implemented in a more efficient, responsive, transparent and accountable manner at the local government level than at the centre. Nonetheless, empirical studies show that the linkage between fiscal decentralization and these local financial governance benefits is not automatic. Several developing countries that have tried to implement fiscal decentralization have failed to realise the promised financial governance gains largely due to design and implementation flaws. A review of the various theoretical perspectives suggest that local financial governance is not a factor of just devolution of fiscal power but also other intervening forces such as financial management system, citizen voicing mechanisms and the social and political context. It is within the framework of this theoretical argument that this study sought to investigate how the mixed and incomplete efforts of the district level fiscal decentralization program in the Amhara region has impacted on financial governance of woreda administrations. The study assesses the efficacy and role of various initiatives of the district level decentralization program of the Amhara region, such as the fiscal empowerment of woredas; financial management system reforms; citizen voicing mechanisms and political party structures and system in influencing woreda financial governance. To this end, the investigation process largely took the form of an interpretative approach employing a combination of various methods of gathering the required qualitative and quantitative data from respondents and documents in the selected four case woredas or districts. Findings on the assessment of the intergovernmental relations to measure the adequacy of devolution of fiscal power indicate that, despite the constitutional provision that affords the woredas the power to mobilize and spend public finance for the provision of various local public services, several design and implementation shortcomings have constrained woreda administrations from exercising such power effectively. As a result, the district level fiscal decentralization framework of the Amhara region appears to have features of decentralization by de-concentration rather than by devolution. Despite the extensive financial management reforms that have been undertaken, the research findings indicate that the financial management system in woreda administrations faces a range of challenges triggered largely by important design and implementation shortcomings. It is observed that the ‘getting the basics right first’ reforms in various financial management processes of woreda administrations are not only incomplete but also found to be inconsistent with each other and therefore could not serve their purpose. Furthermore, there has not been any other change in the last two decades since the initial implementation of these reforms despite such serious shortcomings. Most importantly, woreda administrations could not properly implement the techniques, methods, procedures and rules that constituted the reform process due to serious implementation problems such as the lack of manpower competency and problems associated with the lack of administrative accountability. The results of the study’s assessment regarding the practice of social accountability show that currently there is no arrangement for citizens to participate in public financial decisions and controls. In general, people have little interest in participating in the meetings organised by woreda government. Formal and informal community based organizations suffer from important capcity constraints, and the lack of strong civil society organizations to support these community based organizations makes such problems more difficult to resolve. However, local communities did indicate that they would be interested in participating in financial and budgeting processes if a number of conditions were satisfied. These included the availability of adequate and relevant information; the introduction of genuine forms of participation in which citizens were empowered; and evidence that popular participation was making a visible impact on financial decisions related to service delivery in their surroundings. The assessment of the ruling party structure and system suggests that the centralized system of the regional ruling party has created a dominant relationship between party organs at various levels so much sothat it has undermined the fiscal discretionary power of woreda administrations; blurred relationship between party and woreda financial management systems; and undermined direct voicing. Consequently, the genuine devolution of fiscal power, the effective implementation of the decentralised financial management systems, and direct participation of citizens are unlikely to be realised within the current ruling party system and structure. Moreover, the study shows that the intergovernmental relations, the implementation of financial management reforms and direct involvement of people influence each other. The evidence suggests that the effective implementation of the financial management reforms is not possible without genuine devolution of fiscal power and arrangements for the activeinvolvement of citizens. Despite these limitations and shortcomings, the research nevertheless reveals that the decentralization process has achieved some positive results, such as the expansion of access to basic services; the economic use of resources for such expansion; the mobilization of resources from local communities; and the streamlining of a number of bureaucratic processes. However, the prevalence of various financial governance challenges such as excessive budget transfers; low budget execution; uneconomical procurement; illicit spending; budget pressure; inadequate revenue collection; poor financial transparency; and compromised accountability in fiscally decentralized woreda administrations means the promised local financial governance benefits of fiscal decentralization are remain largely unrealized. The evidences in the study strongly suggest that the shortcomings in the design and implementation of intergovernmental relations, financial management system reforms, and direct voicing mechanisms areresponsible in combination with each other for these local financial governance challenges. Thus, the study concludes that local financial governance is a result of a complex network of interactions of intergovernmental relations, public financial management arrangements and social accountability mechanisms. The success of initiatives to improve local financial governance is dependent on contextual factors such as the capacity of civil society organizations and the ruling party system and structure. Therefore, while recommending further efforts of genuine devolution of power, in particular through the continuation of the financial management reform processes towards full-fledged reforms, the study contends that opening enough space for the proliferation of civil society organizations and alternative political parties will be the main priority.

In the past three decades, there is a growing trend of conducting fiscal decentralization in both transition countries and developed countries. The primary reason for this interest is the theoretical prediction that fiscal decentralization could promote economic development through enhancing or improving the efficiency of the public sector. Despite general acceptance of the contribution of fiscal decentralization to economic growth in theoretical literature, none of the previous fiscal decentralization studies have been successfully verified the growth effect of fiscal decentralization. Moreover, a majority of the empirical research analyzes the relationship without taking institutional factors into consideration, which may result in a biased conclusion. Utilizing fixed effects panel data regression models, this thesis is dedicated to examining the impact of fiscal decentralization on economic growth across 27 EU countries over the period 1995-2015. It first analyzes how the effect of fiscal decentralization on economic growth could differ in Western European (WE) and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Then, it examines the complementarity between fiscal decentralization and well-established institutional mechanism in enhancing economic growth in these two groups of EU countries by...

Une réforme efficace et efficiente du secteur public constitue un enjeu important pour les gouvernements et les partenaires au développement partout dans le monde. La décentralisation budgétaire ̶ le transfert de compétences en matière de recettes et de dépenses du gouvernement central vers les gouvernements locaux ̶ est souvent considérée comme un moyen d’améliorer l’efficacité de la mobilisation des ressources domestiques et de renforcer l’accès et la qualité des services publics. Dans la poursuite de ces objectifs, la décentralisation budgétaire est devenue un élément essentiel de la politique de réforme du secteur public dans de nombreux pays surtout ceux en développement. Face à l’importance des enjeux liés à cette réforme notamment sur les finances publiques, une importante littérature économique s’est attachée à étudier ses conséquences et les conditions de sa réussite. Cette thèse contribue à cet effort à travers quatre chapitres portant sur les effets de la décentralisation budgétaire dans les pays en développement et plus précisément en Côte d’Ivoire.Le premier chapitre analyse les conséquences de la mobilisation fiscale au niveau municipal sur l’accès aux services publics et sur la réduction de la pauvreté. Les résultats suggèrent que l’augmentation des revenus des municipalités accroît l’accès aux services publics, notamment l’éducation, et, dans une moindre mesure, réduit la pauvreté. Cet effet est accentué dans les régions à faible diversité ethnolinguistique et en milieu urbain. Le second chapitre évalue les effets de l’autonomie fiscale des municipalités sur la distribution de revenus de la population. Empiriquement, les résultats suggèrent qu’une augmentation des revenus prélevés par le gouvernement central (et rétrocédés aux municipalités) réduit les inégalités de revenus, alors qu’une augmentation des revenus directement prélevés par les municipalités augmente les inégalités (taxes locales). Le chapitre trois (3) analyse dans quelle mesure les transferts du gouvernement central aux municipalités affectent la mobilisation des revenus de ces dernières. Les résultats montrent qu’une augmentation des transferts augmente les revenus des municipalités provenant des impôts rétrocédés, et, dans une moindre mesure, les taxes locales. Le quatrième chapitre porte sur les déterminants de la conformité des taxes foncières. Nos résultats concluent que la conformité des taxes foncières est déterminée, entre autres, par les niveaux de services publics du gouvernement central et des municipalités, de la confiance des citoyens envers les municipalités et de la compréhension des citoyens du système de taxation. Les résultats de cette thèse induisent d’importantes implications en termes de politiques de renforcement du secteur public. / An effective and efficient public-sector reform enhances government capability to raise domestic revenue for prioritized spending. It also contributes to strengthening the government capacity to manage public resources more effectively and deliver public services. In pursuing these objectives, fiscal decentralization, the devolution of taxing and spending powers to lower levels of government, has become a key public-sector reform in many countries. Given such high stakes, a growing economic literature is focusing on how to better understand the challenges developing countries face in implementing fiscal decentralization reforms. The present thesis adds to this effort through four contributions shedding light on specific issues related to fiscal decentralization.Chapter 1 analyses whether and how municipal revenue mobilization could enhance citizens’ access to public services and reduce poverty. The results indicate that increasing municipal-raised revenues improve access to public services and reduce poverty. This effect works mainly through enhancing access to education than on access to health, especially in less ethnically diverse localities and in urban zones. Chapter 2 investigates the effect of municipal revenue autonomy on inequalities within sub-national governments. We conclude that higher local revenue autonomy reduces income inequalities within localities, which effect differs between the type of revenue and jurisdiction considered. Chapter 3 analyzes the impact of the transfers from central government to municipalities on the revenue mobilization by municipalities. Our results show that increasing central transfers to subnational government boost revenue mobilization by municipalities for both tax revenue and non-tax revenue. The effect of transfers is found to be higher for tax revenue than for non-tax revenue. Finally, we examine whether the effect of government responsiveness on property tax compliance differs between central government and municipalities in chapter 4. The results conclude that responsiveness by municipalities is found to have a greater effect on property tax compliance than those by central governments. The results of our analysis bear important policy implications to strengthen public sector, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

[pt] Os três ensaios que compõem esta tese, têm como objetivo analisar o funcionamento do federalismo fiscal no Brasil. O primeiro analisa as tendências de longo prazo no grau de centralização e no crescimento do governo e sua relação durante o século XX. O achado mais importante deste ensaio é que os processos de descentralização fiscal promovidos pelas Constituições de 1946 e de 1988 aceleraram o crescimento do governo. Esses processos de descentralização provocaram crises no nível federal, que levaram o governo central a aumentar sua receita tributária para compensar a perda de receitas derivada da descentralização de recursos fiscais. Do outro lado, essa descentralização provocou o crescimento da despesa dos estados e municípios, que não foi compensado pela redução da despesa do governo federal. O segundo ensaio analisa a utilização de transferências intergovernamentais como mecanismo de financiamento dos níveis inferiores de governo. Esse ensaio desenvolve um modelo analítico para explicar o efeito expansivo das transferências sobre a despesa das unidades receptoras, conhecido como flypaper effect, e as diferenças regionais na sua intensidade. Usando um modelo de parámetros variando no espaço, o estudo demonstra empíricamente a presença do flypaper effect nas finanças dos municípios brasileros e suas diferenças regionais. Finalmente, o terceiro estuda os determinantes político institucionais do comportamento fiscal dos estados durante o período 1985-1997. O ensaio mostra a existência de ciclos políticos eleitorais, a influência expansionista da fragmentação do sistema partidário sobre a postura fiscal dos estados, a disciplina fiscal imposta pela da participação política da população e o fato de que que administrações estaduais de esquerda tendem a adotar posturas fiscais mais expansionistas do que as adotadas por administrações estaduais de centro ou de direita. / [en] The three essays in this dissertation analyze fiscal federalism in Brazil. The first studies the long run trends of the fiscal centralization and the size of government and their relationship during the XX Century. The most important finding of the first essay is that the process of decentralization inspired by the 1946 and 1948 Constitutions led to an overall expansion of government activities (at the federal, state, and municipal levels). The increase in state and municipal expenditures - because of the decentralization of fiscal resources - was not matched by an equivalent reduction in federal expenditures. Because federal expenditures did not decrease accordingly, and because the decentralization of fiscal resources resulted in a loss of federal revenues, the federal government needed to increase taxes in order to narrow the deficit. The second essay analyzes the use of intergovernmental transfers to finance lower levels of government. The essay develops an analytical model to explain both the expansive effects of transfers on the expenditures of recipient governments, called the flypaper effect. as well as reasons for their regional differences. Using an space-parameter varying estimation, the study empirically demonstrates the expansive effects of intergovernmental and detects their regional differences in Brazilian local governments finances. Finally, the third essay argues that political cycles strongly influenced the fiscal behavior of Brazilian states between 1985 and 1997. The study confirms the existence of political cycles, the influence of political fragmentation, the fiscal discipline induced by the participation of the population and that left wing administrations tended to adopt more expansionary fiscal policies than center or right wing administrations.

1994年財政分權以後，中國大陸城鄉收入差距經歷了一段縮小又擴大的變化，許多學者開始將研究焦點放在財政分權對於城鄉收入差距的影響層面。為了瞭解財政分權對於城鄉收入差距到底造成何種影響，本研究目的有以下三點：一、為探討財政分權對於城鄉收入差距是否造成影響，二、為瞭解制度因素、地方政府財政支出對於城鄉收入差距是否造成影響，三、有鑑於財政上絕對財政中央集權與財政地方分權可能是造成城鄉收入差距擴大的兩個極端，不同於過去的相關研究，本研究認為財政分權與城鄉收入差距間，可能存在非線性的關係，因此在本研究中變數中加入財政分權平方項，對於這樣的假設進行檢測。 本研究針對中國大陸1995至2008年29個省市地區資料，以雙因子固定效果模型進行研究。根據實證結果顯示，在財政自主分權指標對於城鄉收入差距的影響層面，在財政自主小於臨界水準時，隨著財政自主逐漸提高，將會縮小城鄉收入差距；但其負向效果將隨著財政自主提高後逐漸減弱，到達某個臨界水準後，財政自主對於城鄉收入差距的影響將由負轉正。意即中國大陸地方政府財政自主分權指標與城鄉收入差距間呈現非線性的關係，而是呈現類似正U型的曲線。在其他影響城鄉收入差距的變數方面上，本研究發現二元經濟結構係數、財政支出分權指標對於城鄉收入差距有正向的影響，而科技技術財政支出對於城鄉收入差距有負向的影響。透過本研究之結果，可以解釋財政分權對於城鄉收入差距影響結論不一致的說法，進而瞭解縮小地區性城鄉收入差距的最適財政分權程度。 / This purpose of this study is to investigate the changes in mainland China’s regional urban-rural income differential and its determinants during the period of 1995 to 2008. This study uses provincial-level data to analyze whether or not fiscal decentralization provides a positive effect for urban-rural income differential.In order to examine the role of fiscal decentralization in China's regional urban-rural income differential, this study establishes two empirical models with the square term of fiscal decentralization as an independent variable. After we estimate the two-way fixed-effects model of the urban-rural income differential equation, the empirical result shows the financial autonomy of local governments in China and regional urban-rural income differential relationship is nonlinear, but the show is U-shaped curve.

中國大陸自改革開放之後，其經濟成長之快速，使得全球眾多的學者投入中國大陸議題的研究。隨著世界的開發，有限的資源不斷被使用，造成資源愈來愈少，也由於資源的稀少性，因此市場經濟方為競爭的經濟。參與競爭必須首先具備競爭力，作為國民經濟重要組成單元的區域經濟，如何應對日趨激烈的競爭，如何培育構建、提升保持具有區域特色的競爭力，就成為迫在眉睫的問題 本研究之研究目的主要有以下幾點：第一，希望能藉由相關理論文獻，解釋財政地方分權對中國省、市之間競爭力是否會有所影響或是關聯，將以此為本研究之理論基礎，並且進行實證的檢驗；第二，將以1994年中國財政改革以後之財政相關資料，利用中國31個省、市的追蹤資料，資料蒐集期間涵蓋2000年至2008年，以各年各省、市的綜合競爭力作為衡量該省、市的競爭力指標，以期能夠了解各地區競爭力的影響情形； 第三，本研究建立一個二階段固定效果模型，來檢視中國31個省市財政分權對其綜合競爭力的影響，並將各省市的情形做歸納；第四，從實證模型中發現，財政地方分權與區域綜合競爭力間的關聯性為一非線性關係且具有U型曲線關係；最後，利用實證結果來提供具體的政策建議。

Environmental positive externalities from public provision, such as the benefits yielded from the public measure of nature conservation, are often not internalized. Potential sub-optimal public service provision can be expected from such a condition, leading to inefficiency, if the benefits at a greater territorial scale are not acknowledged. This holds particularly true for intergovernmental fiscal relations in a decentralizing multi-tiered governmental system. Moreover, in developing countries the fiscal capacities to perform measures of ecological public functions are limited with their fiscal needs for these functions often appearing to outweigh their fiscal capacities. Research at the interface of the economic theory of fiscal federalism, the sustainability concept, and policies related to conservation and the environment is relatively new. Furthermore, in the literature on environmental federalism the emphasis tends to be comparatively less on the benefits of positive environmental externalities. The essential contribution of this study is an extension of this research field that is still in its infancy by applying the specific case of Indonesia as the context, on account of this tropical country‟s ecological significance as well as its recent developments during the fiscal decentralization process. The overall aim of this study is to assess the possibilities of ecological fiscal transfers as a set of instruments in the public sector to internalize environmental externalities. To this end, the study traces the development as well as the current state of intergovernmental fiscal transfers in Indonesia in terms of ecological purposes. On the basis of this knowledge, the study offers new policy perspectives by proposing a number of policy options for ecological fiscal transfers in the context of the functioning fiscal transfer system and institutions between the national and the subnational (province and local) governments as well as among jurisdictions at the same governmental level. The incorporation of an explicit ecological indicator into general-purpose transfers is the first option. The second option is derived from a revenue-sharing arrangement. In this arrangement, two sub-options are proposed: first, shared revenues from taxes are distributed on the basis of the ecological indicator and, second, shared revenues from natural resources are earmarked for environmental purposes. Finally, the third option suggests an extension of existing specific-purpose transfers for the environment. The potential and limitations of the respective options are addressed. Additionally, a short treatment is given to the discourse on the possible mobilization of fiscal resources in the context of tropical deforestation and global climate change. The research concentrates mainly on the first option, namely the incorporation of an ecological indicator into the structure of general-purpose transfer allocation. In order to substantiate an explicit ecological dimension in the transfer, it extends the present area-based approach by introducing a protected area indicator while maintaining the remaining socio-economic indicators in the fiscal need calculation. The parameter values of area-related indicators are adjusted and subject to the properties of the existing formula. The simulation at the provincial level yields the following results. First, more provinces lose rather than gain from the introduced ecological fiscal transfer when compared to the fiscal transfer that they received in the reference fiscal year. Second, on average the winning provinces obtain a higher level of transfer from the introduction of an ecological indicator in the fiscal need calculation. The extent of the average decreases for the losing provinces, however, it is lower compared to the extent of the average gain by their winning counterparts. In terms of spatial configurations of the general-purpose transfer with an ecological indicator, provinces in Papua would benefit most from the new fiscal regime whereas provinces in Java and Sulawesi, with a few exceptions, would suffer a transfer reduction. Kalimantan and Sumatera show a mixed pattern of winning and losing provinces. The analysis on the equalization effects of the general-purpose transfers makes the following important contributions. It suggests that, first, the transfers are equalizing and, second, the introduction of the protected area indicator into the structure of these transfers plays a significant role in the equalizing effect, particularly in the presence of provinces with a very high fiscal capacity and when the area variable is also controlled. All of these new insights are imperative in the design of fiscal policy which intends to integrate explicit ecological aspects into the instruments of intergovernmental fiscal transfers. Since a formula-based fiscal transfer distribution is intrinsically zero-sum, the aforementioned configuration of winning and losing jurisdictions is conceivable. Among other future perspectives, it is the task of further research to explore ecological fiscal transfer instruments and associated measures that on the one hand seek to induce the losing provinces to join their winning counterparts and, on the other hand, are still subject to the requirements of the rational fiscal transfer mechanism.

中國自改革開放以來，財政體系歷經了幾次重大的變革，其中財政分權為一個重要的階段，並且也被認為是促進中國經濟快速發展的關鍵因素之一。但中央將權力下放給地方，是否對地方政府效率造成正面的效益，許多文獻對此議題有著兩面的看法。因此，本文的研究目的主要探討中國財政分權對地方政府效率的影響。 首先，本研究採用DEA衡量中國31個省市的地方政府效率，並以財政收入的自主性衡量財政分權程度。接著，利用中國的省級追蹤資料（panel data），以及Tobit迴歸模型來進行實證分析。其實證結果指出，財政地方分權和地方政府效率之間存在非線性的關係，意即存在一個財政分權的臨界值。而其他解釋變數方面，各省市人口密度和人均實質GDP對地方政府效率為顯著且正面的影響。此外，時間趨勢變數對地方政府效率存在著顯著且負向的效果。 / The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of local governments in China. Fisrst, this study uses the data envelopment analysis to weigh the efficiency of local governments in China, and takes revenue-autonomy to the variable of finance decentralization. Then, by using the panel data in 31 regions during the period of 1996-2008, this study adopts the Tobit model to analyze whether or not the fiscal decentralization provides a non-linear effect on the local government’s efficiency. The empirical result explain why past papers have inconstant conclusions to this problem and provides some important policy implications.

近年來，隨著中國大陸經濟快速的成長，中國大陸房地產市場也隨之蓬勃發展，然而，近期中國大陸房地產價格的節節高漲，產生了房地產過熱的警訊，而區域間房地產價格的差異與不均，也成為各地區經濟發展的重要阻礙。所以，如何合理的調控房地產價格，使房地產市場能穩定成長並與經濟發展相輔相成，成為中國大陸中央政府必須持續關注與適時妥善處理的問題。 本文運用1999年至2010年中國大陸31個省市地區商品房平均銷售價格和影響房價的經濟相關變數的追蹤資料，運用雙因子固定效果模型進行實證研究。研究結果發現：中國大陸各地區財政分權程度對各地區房地產價格為非線性的關係，呈現U型的曲線。意即，存在一個財政分權的臨界值可以使房價達到最小的情況。建議中央政府應透過調整各地區的財政分權程度，來避免因財政分權不均而產生財政資源不均問題，造成房地產價格的波動。並加強對地方政府的財政預算與財政收入的監督與管制，以抑止「土地財政」的行為。 / With the economic growth, the real estate market is booming in China recently. But the overheating real estate price and the difference of real estate price between region and region become the important impediment to regional economic development in China. Therefore, the central government how to control the real estate price is an immense problem. By using the panel data of average selling price of commercialize buildings and the economic variables of 31cities in China between 1999 and 2010, the study uses two-way fixed effects model to investigate the effect of fiscal decentralization on the real estate price in China. The empirical analysis’ result shows that the fiscal decentralization provides a non-linear effect on the real estate price, it presents the U-shaped curve. In other words, there are a degree of fiscal decentralization can make the real estate price to reach the minimum. According to results, we propose to take some policies. The central government should adjust the degree of fiscal decentralization in each region, in order to avoid the local government financial problem to lead to rise the real estate price.