This paper develops the fiscal health index of 21 local governments in Taiwan over the 1984 to 2010 period. A quantile regression analysis was used to explore the extent that economic variables, political budget cycles, and legislative checks and balances, impact different quantiles of fiscal health index for a country over a sample period of time. Our findings suggest that local governments at...

I attempt to dispel several widely-held myths regarding government finance under the Articles of Confederation, some of which were reiterated in Dougherty and Cain (1997). I defend the contribution mechanism as a method of government finance that is superior to direct taxation by the federal government, and present evidence contradicting the belief that revenue collections under the Articles we...

Background: After revenue-sharing system reform, the proportion of tax refund in fiscal transfer payments continued to decline, and the proportion of categorical grant and condition grant is increased. The paper studies how transfer payment structure effect fiscal efficiency from the perspective of local financial revenue structure. Methods: This paper use the SE-DEA model to measures the finan...

In China, local governments have actively contributed to the growth of new firms. In Russia, local governments have typically stood in the way, be it through taxation, regulation, or corruption. We argue that the difference can be traced to lies in the degree of political centralization present in China, but not in Russia. In China the central government has been strong and disciplined enough t...

In this note we analyze whether a federal transfer system can be designed to increase welfare when state governments create political budget cycles. The results show how the federal government can counteract the welfare costs of these cycles, without hindering politicians from signaling their type, by announcing a transfer scheme to subsidize expenditures that voters do not consider when voting...

The article discusses the concepts of centralisation and decentralisation in theory. There are various criteria that can be used to assess the advantages and disadvantages of decentralisation, and the paper will discuss these. In addition, empirical examples are presented. Next the article moves on to a case study of Finland. Finland has strong municipalities in the comparative European aspect,...

The government's call for “indigenous innovation” has led to significant development in China's science, technology innovation policy and building collaborative relations between research institutions and industry in China. Despite the scale of central government funding for R&D and various government-initiated programmes to stimulate knowledge generation significant challenges remain. Some of ...

This paper examines disparities between unitary central governments and local governments in how environmental policy is defined and implemented at the local level. This is done within the context of northeast Asia, where results can often differ from expectations driven by traditional models of local government behaviour offered by the West. A theoretical measure for policy distance between th...

smacks of "political conservatism," is nonetheless founded on our Constitution-that is, that only problems found difficult of solution on local levels imay be referred to the central government. The federal government should fill clear and present needs, where local authorities-state governments, universities-are not able to supply the requisites. Perhaps the future of the intramural programs c...

In this issue... The federal government designs the CRTC's regulatory policies to promote the entry of new firms into the market for wireline local access services using current facilities and technology. Yet the current pace of technological change means that competition cannot be measured simply by counting the number of competitors in the market. What is needed are incentives for firms to in...