Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers Principles and Practice

Incentives embodied in the design of fiscal transfers have important bearing on the fiscal behaviors of sub-national governments and their service delivery performance. In addition, intergovernmental fiscal transfers can facilitate common economic union through ensuring national minimum standards of public services across the nation. Properly designed fiscal equalization transfers can serve as glue that holds the country together by creating a level playing field for all regions to benefits from fruits of national prosperity. This volume brings together leading scholars and practitioners of intergovernmental finance together to provide a synthesis of the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of grants but also an overview of practices from around the world. The book is divided into four parts. The first part deals with the conceptual issues in grant design. It covers: economic rationale of grants, risk sharing and stabilization issues, grants and soft budget constraints and the political economy of grants. The second part is concerned with constitutional and legal basis for grants and also presents a new institutional economics framework to evaluate alternate institutional arrangements for designing and implementing grants. The third part provides a comprehensive review of practices of intergovernmental transfers. Grant programs covered include: revenue sharing mechanisms, horizontal fiscal equalization using a variety of methods (macro vs fiscal capacity, fiscal need etc) and paternal and fraternal/solidarity programs. It also covers specific purpose transfers and grant and loan financing of capital investments. Finally grants to large cities and metropolitan areas, smaller urban governments and rural local governments are discussed. The final part deals with the impact of grants. In this context, a synthesis of the conceptual and empirical literature on the impact of grants is presented. Overall the book is intended to serve as a comprehensive one-stop window/source of materials to guide practitioners and scholars on design and worldwide practices in intergovernmental fiscal transfers and their implications for efficiency, and equity in public services provision as well as accountable governance.Shah, Anwar is the author of 'Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers Principles and Practice', published 2006 under ISBN 9780821364925 and ISBN 0821364928.