Financing Decentralized Development in a Low‐Income Country: Raising Revenue for Local Government in Uganda

Uganda has been engaged for a number of years in an ambitious programme of political and financial decentralization involving significantly expanded expenditure and service delivery responsibilities for local governments in what are now forty‐five districts. Fiscal decentralization has involved allocation of block grants from the centre to complement increased local tax revenue‐raising efforts by districts and municipalities. This article is concerned with the financial side of decentralization and in particular with an examination of district government efforts to raise revenue with the tax instruments which have been assigned to them. These are found to be deficient in a number of ways and their tax raising potential not to be commensurate with the responsibilities being devolved. Achievement of the decentralization aims laid down, therefore, must depend either on the identification of new or modified methods of raising revenue locally, or increased commitment to transfer of financial resources from the centre, or both.     

A PATH ANALYTIC EXPLORATION OF INCOME CLUSTERING AND LOCAL INEQUALITY

This article explores relationships among income status, economic resources, service needs, and taxing policies for municipalities and schools in 39 metropolitan suburbs of the Milwaukee SMSA. The results indicate some modest support for those who are concerned about the impact of class and income clustering, as well as government fragmentation, on inequalities regarding local tax policy. Use of path analysis to explore some of the possible alternative linkages that account for patterns of fiscal inequality among suburban municipalities shows that fiscal disparities resulting from income clustering by jurisdiction is only partially attributable to resourse and need inequities. It might also be that income status, reflecting differing service preferences, operates directly to generate inter municipal fiscal disparities.     

1894—1914年俄国酒销售垄断的初衷及效果

俄国一直面临着既要保证税收又要减少酗酒的艰巨任务。俄国预算中酒税收入举足轻重;而俄国人酗酒成风,成为严重的社会问题。俄国为了保证稳定的酒税收入,交替运用国家垄断、包税制和消费税形式,其中酒垄断因简单易行和效果明显而历时最长。政府热衷于酒税收入的同时,也助长了酗酒。1894年财政大臣维特实施的酒销售垄断,名为解决酗酒问题和恢复良好民风,实为增加国家岁入。税收目标和社会目标实难两全,这是认识和评价此次酒销售垄断的关键所在;而数百年来俄罗斯人沿袭下来的饮酒习俗则是滋生酗酒的土壤,解决酗酒问题绝非一朝一夕之事。     

LOCAL TAX BURDENS AND THE SUPPLY OF BUSINESS SITES IN SUBURBAN MUNICIPALITIES*

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of local household tax burdens and other community attributes on the supply of business sites made available by local municipalities. A model of community site supply is tested in which municipalities trade off increased fiscal benefits from business location and reductions in environmental quality that accompany industrial and commercial development. This tradeoff is embodied in municipal zoning decisions. Empirical analysis of industrial and commercial zoning in two rapidly growing suburban counties of the Philadelphia metropolitan area provides considerable support for the tenets of community site supply theory.     

Tradeoffs between Local Taxes and Government Spending as Determinants of Business Location*

Abstract. This paper investigates the effects of local fiscal policy on the location decisions of 3,763 establishments that began operations in Maine between 1993 and 1995. Empirical results, estimated from Poisson and negative binomial regression models, indicate that businesses favor municipalities that spend high amounts on public goods and services, even when these expenditures are financed by an increase in local taxes. This suggests that a local fiscal policy of reduced government spending, to balance a tax cut, may attract fewer new businesses than a policy featuring additional spending and higher taxes.     

Apparatus of capture: Fiscal state formation in the republic of Georgia

How did the rate of central government tax revenue more than triple in the (post-Soviet) Republic of Georgia over 2004–2007? This paper investigates fiscal state formation in Georgia using ethnographic fieldwork to document how the reformist government brought to power by the 2003 “Rose Revolution” impelled tax compliance using a set of tactics of anti-corruption, anti-tax evasion, individual accountability, and compromising information collected through extra-legal surveillance. The use of ethnographic methods to examine the recent and rapid process of state formation in Georgia is a departure from much of the extant literature on state formation, which is dominated by historical scholarship that examines relatively long-term processes of political and economic change culminating in the present state. In contrast, the approach taken here uses the Deleuzian concept of assemblage to examine how the state is a process of continuous formation. The fast emergence of a historically unprecedented scale of tax compliance in Georgia was the result of the application of particular techniques of government that assembled micro-subjective dispositions into a macro-institutional process of revenue capture.     

Direct Taxation and State–Society Relations in Lagos,Nigeria

Existing research suggests that external sources of finance, such as foreign aid and natural resource rents, allow states to generate revenue independently of their societies, disincentivizing them from forming close links with their citizens and severely problematizing the notion of a social contract. In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, a series of personal income tax reforms have seen an increase in taxpayer compliance. Considering Lagosians’ perceptions of their relation with the state government, this study examines whether the state had to ‘earn’ its revenue by developing a closer relationship with its citizens, and whether citizens responded through a greater willingness to pay tax. It explores how citizens understand this relationship, what role they perceive themselves to fulfil, and what their expectations are for the future of state–society relations. The study shows how, through efforts to visibly link tax to service delivery, a social contract is emerging between Lagos State and its citizens — but that this relationship differs among groups, in that it is shaped by pre‐existing concepts of public organization and modes of political engagement.     

THE MARKET VALUE OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ALTERNATIVE FISCAL REGIMES*

ABSTRACT Land price differentials have long been used as a proxy for the value of environmental improvements in cost/benefit analysis. Both the empirical and theoretical literatures have largely ignored two important facts, however: Taxes financing local improvements are often distortionary, and amenities which influence property values in turn impact the fiscal budget, and hence the tax rate and final economic burden. Put another way, the economic cost of an improvement is endogenous to both the amenity level and the revenue structure. Extending the story in this direction for a system of open or closed spatial cities, the paper finds land rent measures to be a biased measure of the willingness to pay for amenities financed by either head taxes (benefit taxes), property taxes (excise taxes), or highway tolls (user fees). These results are used to correct the conventional specification of empirical property value regression models, which traditionally account for neither tax revenue effects nor the excess burden of distortionary taxation.     

从徽州文书看清末钱粮的私派陋规

清代后期,是国家的多事之秋。内忧外患加剧了国家财政的需求,而战乱的破坏又使农村的地丁钱粮失额严重,政府不得不在正额之上,施行诸多名目如亩捐、厘谷等的"附征",以及漕粮改折等勒折浮收的手段,来增加政府的财政收入。然而这些制度内的附征和改折,往往又成为地方官吏营私舞弊的重要途径。文章通过清代光绪年间徽州府歙县、黟县等地的钱粮案卷文书资料,对这一时期地方钱粮浮收的实际情景,作一个案性的细部考察,以便对清代后期钱粮浮收的实质,有一个更为全面和清晰的了解。     

THE NET FISCAL IMPACT OF SELECTED FEDERAL BLOCK GRANT PROGRAMS*

This paper examines the net fiscal benefits of various federal grants and taxes paid to finance them. Net, effective tax rates are calculated for all county areas in the U.S. for seven measured grant programs, and the distributions of such tax rates are examined in conjunction with the median family incomes of the county areas. Inferences about the progressivity (or regressivity) of the grant programs are made, as well as inferences about the horizontal equity of the grant programs through the use of a new class of index numbers. It was found that more progressive grant formulas, which provide greater rates of subsidy to areas with lower median family incomes, also tend to be less horizontally equitable.     

Earthquakes,grants, and public expenditure: How municipalities respond to natural disasters

We analyze the response of municipalities to the occurrence of natural disasters in terms of spending behavior, use of upper-tier transfers and recovery, using balance sheet data of about 8,000 Italian municipalities for the period 2000–2015, and the universe of earthquakes events. We find evidence of increasing expenditure for about 12 years after the shocks, with asymmetric responses between earthquake-related and unconditional grants, and heterogeneous flypaper effects across the country. While in northern municipalities expenditure tends to regress to pre-earthquake levels, southern municipalities stick to higher expenditure levels when grants drop. This evidence is coupled with a faster recovery of private income and housing prices in northern municipalities.     

北魏均田制下产权制度变迁分析

结合新制度经济学的有关理论,对我国历史上的均田制进行分析是很有意义的。作为国家强制性的制度变迁形式,均田制依靠国家的力量得以推行,为国家建立税收基础,以实现国家租金收入的最大化。但是,在均田制实施的过程中,却遭遇到了来自下层的变通与退出力量,使得均田制度的演进过程又呈现出既定利益结构下的诱致性变迁。     

The Origins of Tunnage and Poundage: Parliament and the Estate of Merchants in the 14th Century

By establishing the dates and political context of all early grants of the subsidy of tunnage and poundage, this study provides new evidence for the relationship between parliament and the so-called 'estate of merchants' during the third quarter of the 14th century. Until the 1370s, tunnage and poundage was granted by the king's council with the assent of groups of merchants; it was only at the end of Edward III's reign that grants of the tax began to be made in parliament, and only from the mid 1380s that it became fully integrated into the customs system. Throughout the period of experimentation, the subsidy was intended for a specific purpose: the defence of the coasts and of English shipping. This partly explains why the crown chose to discuss it with groups of mariners and merchants rather than with the Lords and Commons in parliament. The chronology therefore calls into question assumptions about the collapse of the estate of merchants in the 1350s and the take-over of its fiscal and political agenda by the burgesses in the parliamentary Commons. Through an analysis of petitions made in the name of the 'merchants of England', it can be shown that crown and parliament alike continued to recognize this group as a distinct political entity for the rest of Edward III's reign. The decisive shift came not in the 1350s but in 1382, when the merchants themselves acknowledged that the appropriate place to determine the crown's financial policies was, indeed, in parliament.     

我国旅游资源、区位和入境旅游收入的空间错位分析

旅游资源和区位是影响区域入境旅游发展的两大基本要素。本文以我国大陆31个省区为区域研究单元,借用重力模型和二维组合矩阵方法,分析了旅游资源、区位和入境旅游收入三者之间的空间错位现象。结果发现：（1）区位指数和入境旅游收入指数重心偏向我国东部地区,旅游资源丰度指数重心偏向中西部地区;（2）资源与收入、区位与收入、资源与区位三组二维组合关系均存在明显的空间错位,可以将这种二维组合关系划分为五种类型来描述各省区的旅游发展现状。     

PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONISM AND TAX BURDENS: ARE THEY RELATED?*

One factor that has affected state and local politics since the 1960's is the growth of public sector unionism. Conventional wisdom assumes that the “fist generation” of public unionism has been a major cause of the fiscal problems faced by many state and local governments in the 1970's. State level cross-sectional analysis (1960–71) questions this widely held assumption with respect to the impact of strike activity and collective bargaining legislation on the tax burden across the states.     

Norms,coercion and contracting in the struggle against ‘harmful’ tax competition

The world's richest and most powerful countries have become increasingly concerned about revenue lost to tax havens, and fear that tax competition might spark a fiscal ‘race to the bottom’, yet they have failed to pressure much smaller and weaker tax haven states into reform. This article argues that the OECD-sponsored campaign against ‘harmful’ tax competition has been unsuccessful because regulative norms have severely constrained the means legitimately able to be employed. Early decisions on how the campaign was designed subsequently brought norms into play which have not only ruled out the use of coercion, but also the use of side payments, despite the massive potential benefits available to both sides from a deal between tax havens and OECD states. The failure to strike a deal cannot be explained by high transaction costs nor by corporate lobbying in defence of tax shelters. Regulative norms can thus affect economic bargaining in the international arena by preventing mutually advantageous exchanges that are nevertheless regarded as inappropriate.     

Decentralization,Local Taxation and Citizenship in Senegal

This article deals with the politics of revenue collection in a framework of decentralization, democratization and multiparty politics as experienced in the small village of Barkedji in the pastoral region of Senegal. In Senegal, revenue collection has recently been transferred from state administrators to locally elected councillors. Contrary to the assumption of the ‘good governance’ doctrine, this transfer of responsibility has not resulted in a strengthening of democratic structures where taxpayers demand (and gain) public services and more political representation in exchange for increasing taxes. In Barkedji, as elsewhere in Senegal, tax‐compliance hit rock‐bottom after tax collection became the responsibility of local councillors. Meanwhile other types of local institutions, with less clear state relations, are able to mobilize large amounts of revenue outside the normal tax channels for the provision of goods and service. These non‐state institutions seem to have taken over as providers of political representation as well as suppliers of public goods and of access or rights to crucial local resources. The article explores the motivation among first‐comers and newcomer populations to adopt or reject tax requirements to different types of organizations, and discusses the implications of this parallel tax collection for the exercise of public authority and the crafting of state and citizenry.     

Competition between regional governments and the federal culture of fiscal equalisation

Since federation, regional economic development in Australia has been shaped by fiscal competition among state and Commonwealth governments. Variations in the fiscal capacity of the different governments to provide goods and services, together with the Commonwealth's increased revenue collection powers since 1942, has led to vigorous political competition between the states over their share of the general purpose funds through a process known as fiscal equalisation. The state premiers themselves have been at the forefront of the debates over fiscal equalisation and, as events surrounding the 1992 June Premiers’ Conference have indicated, competition over an equitable share of the fiscal resources highlights the strong federal orientation of economic development. The aim of this paper is first, to explain the significance of the Commonwealth Grants Commission's equalisation process in the wider economic and political context of competitive state federalism and, second, to explain the historical importance of regional political values that contribute to the shape of state economic developments.     

Punctuated Equilibrium and Bureaucratic Autonomy in American City Governments

Several recent applications of Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) have yielded compelling findings linking institutional design and change distributions, yet, much more work needs to be done to understand institutional arrangements that make punctuated processes more or less likely. In responding to the recent call for more research on unraveling particular mechanisms through which bureaucracy moderates the odds of policy punctuations, this research explores the potential of bureaucratic expertise and professionalism in fostering rational decision making, and thus the stability in change dynamics. One important feature of urban government receives close attention: the position by professionalized, trained bureaucrats in municipalities (city manager and chief administrative officer) and the effects of their discretion on altering municipal budgetary change distributions. Analysis of a novel dataset of fiscal policy changes, charter and census information of city governments in the State of Michigan, 2005–11, suggests city governments, on average, produce change patterns that conform to the expectations of PET; more importantly, it reveals that heightened levels of managerial discretion can have a significant implication for helping cities experience less abrupt, punctuated budget changes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for PET, policy change dynamics, and the design of city-governing institutions.