From the tax-sharing system to the program system: Institutional evolution and organizational mechanism

2021 ◽  
pp. 2057150X2110079
Author(s):  
Changquan Jiao
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Program System ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Organizational Mechanism ◽  
State Regime ◽  
State Governance ◽  
Tax Sharing ◽  
Bureaucratic State

Soon after implementing reforms to the tax-sharing system, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) implemented public budgeting reform, and thus formed a new kind of state governance system, the program system (PS). There are three categories of program expenditures available to local governments: “earmarked grants” from higher-level authorities; “non-grant program funds” from higher-level authorities; and program funds from same-level government departments. The convergence and reorganization of these three categories of program expenditure at the local level has, to a great extent, molded the fiscal structure of grassroots government in the PRC. The PS in essence does not mean discarding or surpassing the bureaucratic state system, rather, it is the active improvement and supplementing of the bureaucratic system by the state: a continuation and development of state regime construction. The overt purpose of the PS is to “solidify” budgetary constraints, while the underlying purpose is to enhance the government’s ability to respond to society. The two purposes present some tension in practice, as the rationalized and professionalized forms of governance that result do not necessarily enhance the ability to respond to public needs; in fact the reverse is quite possible.

scholarly journals Health and equity in all policies in local government: processes and outcomes in two Norwegian municipalities

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (18_suppl) ◽  
pp. 68-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina Von Heimburg ◽  
Berit Hakkebo
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Well Being ◽  
System Capacity ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Crowd Sourcing ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Human Capacity

Aims: To identify key factors in implementing Health and Equity in All Policies (HEiAP) at the local level in two Norwegian municipalities in order to accelerate the progress of promoting health, well-being and equity in other local governments. Approach: This case study is presented as a narrative from policy-making processes in two Norwegian municipalities. The story is told from an insider perspective, with a focus on HEiAP policy makers in these two municipalities. Results: The narrative identified key learning from implementing HEiAP at the local level, i.e. the importance of strengthening system and human capacities. System capacity is strengthened by governing HEiAP according to national legislation and a holistic governance system at the local level. Municipal plans are based on theory, evidence and local data. A ‘main story’ is developed to support the vision, defining joint societal goals and co-creation strategies. Policies are anchored by measuring and monitoring outcomes, sharing accountability and continuous dialogue to ensure political commitment. Human capacity is strengthened through participatory leadership, soft skills and health promotion competences across sectors. Health promotion competence at a strategic level in the organization, participation in professional networks, crowd sourcing toward common goals, and commitment through winning hearts and minds of politicians and other stakeholders are vital aspects. Conclusions: Our experience pinpoints the importance of strengthening system and human capacity in local governments. Further, we found it important to focus on the two strategic objectives in the European strategy ‘Health 2020’: (1) Improving health for all and reducing health inequalities; (2) improving leadership and participatory governance for health.

scholarly journals Limits of fiscal federalism: How narratives of local government inefficiency facilitate scalar dumping in New York State

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 636-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunji Kim
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Fiscal Federalism ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Local Level ◽  
New York State ◽  
Fiscal Sustainability ◽  
Governance System ◽  
York State

US local governments are responsible for a variety of services, based on the assumptions of fiscal federalism that local governments can deliver residents the services they want at the lowest cost. However, an austerity narrative that calls for shrinking public budgets emerged after the 2008 global financial crisis and higher levels of government are dumping fiscal stress down to the local level in a process of “scalar dumping.” How do local governments respond to these austerity pressures and why do we see weak pushback from local governments? Focus groups with local government officials across New York State show local responses are constrained by the combination of a state-level limit on local property taxes and a narrative of local government inefficiency. Although local governments have the legal authority to raise revenues, they are reluctant to use this authority due to political pressure from the state and voters. These pressures encourage local governments to maintain services without adequate revenues. Pushback is weak as local governments lack institutional power in a state-based federal system and the heterogeneity among local governments makes collective action difficult. Fiscal federalism promises efficiency and effectiveness in a decentralized governance system, but has limited ability to counter “scalar dumping” that erodes fiscal sustainability. More balance of power in state–local relationships and a narrative that better connects local taxes and services are necessary.

Spatial and Institutional Analysis of the Voivodships Expenditure on Culture in the Years 2003 – 2015

e-Finanse ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
Adam Mateusz Suchecki
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
The State ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Location Quotient ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
National Heritage

AbstractFollowing the completion of the process of decentralisation of public administration in Poland in 2003, a number of tasks implemented previously by the state authorities were transferred to the local level. One of the most significant changes to the financing and management methods of the local authorities was the transfer of tasks related to culture and national heritage to the set of tasks implemented by local governments. As a result of the decentralisation process, the local government units in Poland were given significant autonomy in determining the purposes of their budgetary expenditures on culture. At the same time, they were obliged to cover these expenses from their own revenues.This paper focuses on the analysis of expenditures on culture covered by the voivodship budgets, taking into consideration the structure of cultural institutions by their types, between 2003-2015. The location quotient (LQ) was applied to two selected years (2006 and 2015) to illustrate the diversity of expenditures on culture in individual voivodships.

Incentives for the development of industrial parks (on the example of the border regions of Poland)

2020 ◽  
pp. 78-87
Author(s):  
Yaroslava Kalat
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Cost Minimization ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Industrial Park ◽  
Border Regions ◽  
Industrial Parks ◽  
Spatial Policy

In the search for efficient decisions directed at the stimulation of regional development and improvement of regions’ innovativeness and investment attractiveness, the EU regions have long ago started paying attention to local communities. In particular, Polish local governments are granted an opportunity to conduct an active spatial policy of investment attraction using various instruments. In this context, the industrial parks play an important role among the created institutes of the business environment, because they create advantages for local communities and businesses. In particular, they promote investment attraction, entrepreneurship activation, employment and jobs increase, material cost minimization, etc. At the same time, the development of entrepreneurship environment institutes requires support at national, regional, and local levels. The development will be almost impossible without the creation of proper legal, political, economic, and social conditions for their activity. The paper aims to define major stimuli of industrial park development based on the Polish experience, the economic structure of which is similar to the Ukrainian one. This will contribute to the development of the ways to boost industrial park development in Ukraine, especially in the border areas. For the matter, the author outlines the major instruments used by Polish local communities to boost investment and entrepreneurship activity in the framework of industrial park development. The scientific paper emphasizes the analysis of legislation on creation, functioning, and support of Polish industrial park development, and further perspectives of their activity. Special attention is paid to general characteristics of the condition of industrial parks located in Polish border regions. The advantages of each of them are determined and examples of their creation and development are given. The research resulted in the allocation of two groups of stimuli of industrial parks development which are the precondition, according to the author, of industrial parks becoming the instrument of investment attraction, economic boost of the territories, and entrepreneurship activity growth: the stimuli of development of industrial parks’ organizational structure (public financial assistance; information and advisory support; grans of European funds; international cooperation / partnership; independent spatial policy at the local level) and the stimuli of entrepreneurship development in industrial parks (infrastructure (physical and soft); public financial assistance; tax incentives; investment grants; financial loans).

Concept and components of the financial-investment maintenance of local governance

2020 ◽  
pp. 100-112
Author(s):  
Zenoviy Siryk
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Standards ◽  
Investment Policy ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Financial Investment ◽  
Balanced Development ◽  
And Function

The issues related to the management of financial resources of territorial communities, financial independence of local governments and forming of efficient financial-investment policy to secure the balanced development of local communities and territories become of utmost importance in conditions of financial decentralization and administrative-territorial reform in Ukraine. The problem issues concerning the forming of financial-investment maintenance of local governance directly impact the capacity of a territorial community that should have financial, material, and other resources in the volumes sufficient to completely accomplish the tasks and function of local governments and provide social services to the population at the level stipulated by national standards. The forming of financial-investment maintenance of local governance is revealed to be directly influencing the capacity of a territorial community that should have financial, material, and other resources in the volumes sufficient to completely accomplish the tasks and function of local governments and provide social services to the population. The expansion of local governments’ competences and granting them greater independence are substantiated to be requiring more responsibility in the financial-investment policy implementation on the local level, forming of conditions to perform the economic activity, and develop businesses by all economic entities, and promoting favorable investment climate in the region. Based on the analysis of approaches to the definition of the nature of “financial maintenance” and “investment maintenance” in the context of the peculiarities of local governments’ activity, the paper suggests understanding the “financial-investment maintenance of local governance” as a set of opportunities and activities on distribution and use of financial resources and territories’ resources for the creation of conditions necessary for the efficient functioning of local governments and realization of their competences.

scholarly journals Renewable Energy Attitudes and Behaviour of Local Governments in Poland

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 2765
Author(s):  
Joanna Rakowska ◽  
Irena Ozimek
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Energy Behavior ◽  
Public Aid ◽  
Energy Projects

The deployment of renewable energy at the local level can contribute significantly to mitigating climate change, improving energy security and increasing social, economic and environmental benefits. In many countries local authorities play an important role in the local development, but renewable energy deployment is not an obligatory task for them. Hence there are two research questions: (1) Do local governments think investments in renewable energy (RE) are urgent and affordable within the local budgets? (2) How do they react to the public aid co-financing investments in renewable energy? To provide the answer we performed qualitative analysis and non-parametric tests of data from a survey of 252 local authorities, analysis of 292 strategies of local development and datasets of 1170 renewable energy projects co-financed by EU funds under operational programs 2007–2013 and 2014–2020 in Poland. Findings showed that local authorities’ attitudes were rather careful, caused by financial constraints of local budgets and the scope of obligatory tasks, which made renewable energy investments not the most urgent. Public aid was a factor significantly affecting local authorities’ behavior. It triggered local authorities’ renewable energy initiatives, increasing the number and scope of renewable energy investments as well cooperation with other municipalities and local communities. Despite this general trend, there were also considerable regional differences in local authorities’ renewable energy behavior.

Cyberspace at the Grassroots: E-Governance and Citizen/Stakeholder Perceptions at the Local Level in Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
pp. 245513332110340
Author(s):  
Habib Zafarullah ◽  
Jannatul Ferdous
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Information And Communications Technology ◽  
Least Developed Countries ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Citizen Perceptions

Bangladesh has experimented with e-governance since the early 2000s and currently ranks among the top 10 least developed countries. The deployment of e-governance at the local level has provided benefits to the rural people, with local councils increasingly using information and communications technology (ICT) to expand community-based delivery systems and augment rural service delivery. One-stop cyber centres provide a range of services that are user-friendly, cost-effective and less time-consuming. This study focuses on five sub-districts to inquire about the range of services provided by the e-service centres there. It has recorded citizen perceptions and the level of their satisfaction and the observations of service providers about the e-service mechanism. It also identifies key challenges in service delivery. Citizen satisfaction was measured using 12 indicators, while the service provider observations focused on social issues, governance, resource and technical issues. The study found several issues requiring attention to consolidate the e-governance system in the country.

Transfer-based decentralisation, economic growth and spatial inequality: Evidence from China’s 2002–2003 tax sharing reform

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 806-826
Author(s):  
Fan Fan ◽  
Ming Li ◽  
Ran Tao ◽  
Dali Yang
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Spatial Inequality ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Interregional Inequality ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Tax Sharing

China has adopted a transfer-based fiscal decentralisation scheme since the mid-1990s. In the 1994 tax sharing reform, the central government significantly raised its share of government revenue vis-à-vis local governments by taking most of the newly created value-added tax on manufacturing. One aim for the adoption of the transfer-based fiscal scheme was to channel more funds to less developed regions and rural areas, and to alleviate growing interregional inequality and urban–rural income disparity. In 2002 and 2003 the Chinese central government further grabbed 50% and 60%, respectively, of the income taxes previously assigned only to local governments while providing more fiscal transfers to the country’s poor regions and the countryside. Utilising the 2002–2003 change in China’s central–local tax sharing regime as an exogenous policy shock, we employ a Simulated Instrumental Variable approach to causally evaluate the effects of the policy shock on growth, interregional inequality and urban–rural disparity. We find the lower local tax share dis-incentivised local governments and led to lower growth. Although higher central transfers helped to reduce interregional inequalities in per capita GDP and per capita income, the equalising effects were only present for urban incomes. We argue that transfer-based decentralisation without bottom-up accountability was detrimental to economic growth and had limited impact on income redistribution.

scholarly journals Underneath Kyoto: Emerging Subnational Government Initiatives and Incipient Issue-Bundling Opportunities in China and the United States

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Koehn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Stress Reduction ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Stabilization Policies

At present, progress in mitigating global GHG emissions is impeded by political stalemate at the national level in the United States and the People's Republic of China. Through the conceptual lenses of multilevel governance and framing politics, the article analyzes emerging policy initiatives among subnational governments in both countries. Effective subnational emission-mitigating action requires framing climatic-stabilization policies in terms of local co-benefits associated with environmental protection, health promotion, and economic advantage. In an impressive group of US states and cities, and increasingly at the local level in China, public concerns about air pollution, consumption and waste management, traffic congestion, health threats, the ability to attract tourists, and/or diminishing resources are legitimizing policy developments that carry the co-benefit of controlling GHG emissions. A co-benefits framing strategy that links individual and community concerns for morbidity, mortality, stress reduction, and healthy human development for all with GHG-emission limitation/reduction is especially likely to resonate powerfully at the subnational level throughout China and the United States.

scholarly journals Research on Modern Marine Environmental Governance in China: Subject Identification, Structural Characteristics, and Operational Mechanisms

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 4485
Author(s):  
Qi Chen ◽  
Huijuan Yu ◽  
Yezhi Wang
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Pressure System ◽  
Operational Mechanism ◽  
The One ◽  
Process Coordination ◽  
Marine Environmental

Under the guidance of modern environmental governance concepts, there have been profound changes in the subject, structure, and operational mechanism of the modern marine environmental governance in China. This paper first classifies the subjects of modern marine environmental governance in China, as well as their relationships; analyses the structural characteristics from the three levels of rights, society, and region; explores the operational mechanism; and builds the framework of the modern marine environmental governance system in China. Both the central and local governments act as the leaders of the modern marine environmental governance system in China, and there have been many new changes in their relationships. On the one hand, the interest and goals of the central and local governments have gradually converged under the pressure system. On the other hand, local governments follow the principles of comprehensive governance regarding the coastline and collaborative cooperation is gradually beginning to occur. Different governance subjects are interrelated and intertwined to form a complete modern marine environmental governance structure, which includes the following three levels: the governmental power structure; the social structure, which involves collaboration between multiple entities; and the regional structure, which involves land-sea coordination in environmental governance. These structures each play their parts in the overall process of the marine environmental governance’s institutional arrangements, process coordination, and feedback adjustments and ultimately constitute a dynamic and complete modern marine environmental governance operational system.

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