Unanticipated economic fluctuations exert pressure on state governments to adjust their discretionary fiscal policies to accommodate the changing fiscal situation. Even though states adjust fiscal policy as the economy fluctuates, the typical cyclical economic factors are not the sole determinant of such adjustments. State governments budgeting systems in the United States operate under a variety of budgetary institutions. The most prominent state government budgetary institutions include balanced budget rules (BBRs), tax and expenditure limits (TELs), and supermajority voting requirements for tax increases. This dissertation examines how these budgetary institutions affect state government choices of fiscal policy under different economic conditions. To better understand the effect of state level TELs, a stringency index of state level TEL is constructed considering the major structural features. The fixed-effect panel regressions are used for the analysis of impact of TEL and BBR and tax changes and the fixed-effect Tobit is adopted to test the impact of TEL and BBR on spending cuts after the budget is adopted. The result suggests that TEL plays a more important role affecting states discretionary fiscal adjustment from the tax side, while BBR plays a more important role affecting states discretionary fiscal adjustment from the expenditure side. Results of this research show that TEL exerts pressure on states that hinder state ability to deal with volatile fiscal situations, especially in the case of periods of budget crises.

This research analyses the statistical relationship between income distribution and seven taxation and government expenditure components in Namibia using data from 1996-2016. The research is aimed at creating new knowledge on the research topic because no literature exists for Namibia. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration technique was employed to assess the long-run relationship between the dependent and independent variables in Eviews. The research findings indicated that there is no long-run relationship between the dependent variable and independent variables. In the short-run, the research findings indicate that government expenditure on social pensions and government expenditure on education have a balancing effect on income distribution, while tax on products, corporate income tax and customs and excise duties have an unbalancing and/or worsening effect on income distribution. Based on these findings, tertiary education loans are recommended as opposed to grants to ensure sustainability of Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NASFAF). In adjusting corporate and value added taxes, the government is cautioned to avoid overburdening consumers and employees through tax shifting in the form of high prices of goods and services and low wages and benefits. A tax mix, tax discrimination and a hybrid of taxation and government expenditure components are strongly recommended to achieve a balance. / Economics / M. Com. (Economics)

Este estudo tem por objetivo principal identificar a (in) dependência orçamentária em relação às transferências intergovernamentais dos Municípios com até 10.000 habitantes no Estado de Santa Catarina e seu reflexo para o crescimento econômico. Como objetivos secundários este trabalho tem a finalidade de estudar o funcionamento do Estado Brasileiro a partir do seu federalismo fiscal, mensurar a relação entre as transferências intergovernamentais e a arrecadação total e própria dos Municípios, analisar a evolução da participação das transferências intergovernamentais na arrecadação municipal com a variação dos respectivos Produtos Internos Brutos (PIBs). Com o intuito de subsidiar a compreensão do tema é realizada uma explicação sobre o Estado e Administração Pública. Em seguida é analisada a Política Pública como instrumento para a materialização do Estado, sendo também elaborada uma explanação sobre tópicos de Finanças Públicas, incluindo o Orçamento Público e, por fim, o crescimento e desenvolvimento econômico. A relevância do estudo reside no fato de que pequenos Municípios têm problemas na arrecadação própria e tendo como imprescindíveis à sua “sobrevivência” as transferências intergovernamentais. A razão entre esses dois tipos de recursos influi no crescimento econômico. Dessa forma, deseja-se demonstrar a essencialidade das transferências intergovernamentais para os pequenos Municípios. Como método de pesquisa tem-se a descritiva, com o uso da pesquisa bibliográfica e documental para subsidiar o marco referencial teórico. Como resultado ficou demonstrada a dependência com as transferências e que, na média da amostra, no período de 2008 a 2012, teve representatividade acima de 89%, exceto para o ano de 2010 quando esse valor corresponde a 76,38%, sendo a União a principal origem dessas transferências. Em relação à evolução do PIB, no período da pesquisa, foi de -11%. O resultado final é que a dependência dos Municípios em relação às transferências intergovernamentais não influencia o crescimento econômico. / The present study primarily aims at identifying budget (in) dependence concerning inter- governmental transfers and their effect on the economic growth of municipalities having up to 10,000 inhabitants in the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil. As secondary objectives, it aims at: studying the Brazilian State operational method from its fiscal federalism point of view through measuring the relationship between inter-governmental transfers and municipality total tax collection: and, analyzing inter-governmental transfer participations in the municipality tax collection, also considering their respective Gross Domestic Product (GDP) variations. To help understanding the subject at issue, we provide explanations of the State and Public Administration performances, Public Finances, Public Budget, economic growth and development. The study relevance lies in the fact that small municipalities have tax collection problems and inter-governmental transfers are vital for their survival. The total amount deriving from both resources greatly affects economic growth, thus we intend to show that inter-governmental transfers are essential to small municipalities. The research methodology is descriptive, bibliographic and documental focusing on the theoretical referential landmark. According to the research sample average, results show that municipalities depend on transfers, mainly from the Federal Government, that represented over 89% between 2008 and 2012, except for 2010 when they were equivalent to 76.38%. GDP during our research period was -11% showing that dependence on inter-governmental transfers does not affect the municipality economic growth.

The adoption of the Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG1) of reducing the rate of poverty to half of the 1990-level by 2015, the advent of democracy in South Africa, among other things, have raised concerns over the potential role of the agricultural sector. There is a belief that the sector has the capacity to successfully reduce poverty among the rural masses and contribute to addressing the problem of inequality in South Africa. In line with that thinking, South Africa‘s agricultural sector has attracted considerable fiscal policy interest. For instance, South Africa‘s statistics show that public investments in agricultural development programmes have been growing. In spite of this, rural poverty is still a major concern on an overall basis. However, this might not be the case in the Eastern Cape Province and the situation might be different for each district municipality. This study assesses the linkages between public agricultural investment, agricultural growth and poverty reduction in the Eastern Cape Province. The study also addresses the question whether Eastern Cape Province is on course to meet several regional development targets. The study also aims to provide an estimate of the amount of agricultural investment required to attain the agricultural productivity growth rate which is sufficient to meet MDG1. The study reviewed the various theories of public spending, linkages between public investment and agricultural growth and how these components affect the incidence of poverty. The conventional wisdom that public expenditure in agriculture positively affects economic growth and this growth consequently reduces poverty was noted. The reviews also revealed that in many developing countries, the current level of public agricultural investment needs to be increased significantly for countries to meet the MDG1. This study employed the decomposition technique and growth elasticity of poverty concept to estimate the response of poverty to its key determinants. The size of public spending, prioritization of public spending and the intensity in the use of public funds emerged as important in increasing agricultural production. The relationship between government investment in agriculture and agricultural GDP shows iv that public funds were largely behind the province‘s success in increasing agricultural production throughout the period from 1990s to 2010. Agricultural spending went to sustainable resource management, administrative functions and then farmer support programme. Exceptional growth in the size of spending was recorded in respect to agricultural economic function, structured agricultural training, sustainable resource management and veterinary services. Overall output from the agricultural sector fluctuated, and the sector contributed less than 5 per cent to the total provincial GDP. Correlations between growth in agricultural sector and changes in the incidence of poverty in Eastern Cape show that during the period 1995 to 2000, increases in the agricultural GDP per capita may have failed to benefit the poor as poverty increased in all the reported cases.–However, for the period between 2005 and 2010, the situation was different and it was observed that increases in agricultural GDP per capita and were associated with reduction in the incidence of poverty. Growth elasticity of poverty (GEP) estimates reveal that agricultural GDP per capita was more important in reducing poverty in 5 out of the 7 district municipalities. Non-agricultural GDP per capita was only important in two district municipalities. It emerged that most of the district municipalities are not in a position to meet any of the regional set goals. This situation is largely attributable to the province‘s failure to boost agricultural production which is an outcome of low and inefficient public expenditure management, inconsistent and misaligned policies and failure to fully embrace the concept of pro-poor growth. Varied provisional estimates for the required agricultural growth rate and the increase in public spending on agriculture required in order to reach MDG1 were calculated for each district municipalities. All the district municipalities of Eastern Cape will need to increase public investment in agriculture for them to achieve MDG1.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A sizeable body of research has attempted to examine the interaction between government spending and private giving known as the crowd-out effect. Most researchers reported that increases of government spending cause decreases of philanthropic giving to different types of nonprofits. However, few studies have attempted to indicate the interaction between government welfare expenditures and private giving to human service organizations even though human service organizations are the most sensitive to the changes of government spending. Additionally, the estimated crowd-out effects with a simple crowd-out model have been criticized for potential endogeneity bias. This paper investigates the total effect of federal government welfare spending on state government expenditures and philanthropic giving to human service organizations (known as joint crowd-out). I used the 2005 wave of the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS) to estimate the effect of federal human service grants on state government spending on, and donations to human services. From these reduced-form estimates I infer the levels of simple and joint crowd-out. I found that indicate federal spending on public welfare crowds out private giving to human service organizations while holding control variables constant in the donations equation. However, federal government spending on public welfare crowds in state government spending on public welfare.