Though fiscal policies of central governments sometimes provide modest insurance against regional income shocks, this paper shows that pro-cyclical fiscal policy among provincial governments can easily overwhelm these stabilizing effects. We examine the cyclicality of budget items among provincial governments in eight federations, showing that own-source taxes are highly pro-cyclical and contra...

Like many trends that influence public policy and administration, ‘e-government’ is a multifaceted and nebulous idea, easily applied to a range of different situations, across the entire gamut of government and society, and with differing intentions. There are wideranging claims made for e-government, considerable hopes pinned on it, and substantial commitments – financial and otherwise – made ...

57 National Tax Journal Vol. LIV, No. 1 Abstract This paper tests whether state and local fiscal policy depended on the number of seats in the legislature in the first half of the 20th century. We find that large legislatures spent more, as implied by the “Law of 1/n” from the fiscal commons/logrolling literature. The same relation appears in the latter half of the century, and therefore seems ...

Over the last decade, a number of western government agencies and international organisations have increasingly turned their attention to fragility and failure of state institutions as a major international policy challenge in the fields of security and development assistance. The concepts of “fragile” and “failed states” are now widely used in diplomatic negotiations on global security, peacek...

This dissertation examines the connection between local government policy and changes in absolute rural poverty. Understanding this insufficiently studied relationship will help us to clarify theoretical questions on the role of the state, market and other factors in reducing poverty, as well as to identify effective policy responses to poverty. Absolute rural poverty varies throughout China, a...

There are no technological barriers to eliminating major transboundary livestock diseases. 'Elimination' means that diseases no longer threaten livestock in the developed world nor the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of small farmers elsewhere. The problem is not lack of technology but failure of public policy. Developed country policy should actively combat accidental and intentional intro...