Trends in rural fiscal decentralisation in India’s Karnataka state: a focus on public health

For decades, decentralisation reforms have been seen as a powerful instrument by health policy advocates to improve health sector performance in developing countries. In India, the 73rd Constitutional Amendment introduced in 1992 called for strengthening the fiscal autonomy and service delivery capacity of rural local governments. This paper explores how decentralised governance influences public health sector resource allocation, equity and efficiency in rural Karnataka. For this, the authors analysed administrative data published by the Karnataka state government to create tailored standardised performance measures that capture the degree of local governments’ fiscal discretion in implementing public health programmes from 2011–18 at the district level. The findings highlight sector-specific differences in fiscal autonomy, ranging from high local discretion over funds in the nutrition sector to very limited discretion in the medical and public health sector. They also show that decentralised public health funding is not well-targeted to areas of greatest need in Karnataka

Progressive turnover-based tax systems and EU state aid law: Case C-562/19 P Commission v. Poland and Case C-596/19 P Commission v. Hungary

In Commission v. Poland (C-562/19) and Commission v. Hungary (C-596/19) the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that progressive tax systems based on turnover do not by definition provide selective advantages to undertakings with lower turnovers in violation of EU state aid law. The European Commission had declared a Polish tax on retailers and a Hungarian tax on advertisement incompatible with Article 107(1) TFEU because the progressive, turnover-based taxes favoured undertakings with smaller turnovers over those with larger turnovers. The General Court annulled both Commission decisions because such advantages were inherent to the content and objectives of the general tax system, which was for Poland and Hungary to define. The Court of Justice dismissed the appeals by the Commission, affirming that Member States are free, in line with their fiscal autonomy, to opt for a progressive and/or turnover-based tax system. While turnover-based corporate taxation may have market-distortive effects, the Court was right to dismiss the Commission's appeals. The principles of fiscal autonomy and legal certainty require an assessment of selectivity in light of Member States’ own definition of the content and objectives of their tax systems.

Fiscal decentralization in Russia and the world: trends and effects

The paper identifies the state of federal and local fiscal decentralization in Russia and its effects. Original classification of decentralization indicators by a consolidated parameter indicator and a single-level parameter indicator (fiscal autonomy) is proposed. The indicator of vertical imbalance is allocated to a separate group. Despite the upward trend of fiscal decentralization in the world, Russian federal fiscal decentralization (the size of fiscal powers of regional authorities) has not increased and lags most other federations. However, the state of local decentralization (the size of fiscal powers of local authorities) is much worse, since for 2008-2018 there was a significant reduction and local revenue decentralization is minimal compared to other federations. The results obtained may indicate that fiscal decentralization could not contribute to the efficiency of the Russian budgetary system. The decrease in local decentralization may have been caused by the growth of the regional debt, but the question of why there was a decrease remains open. Favorable role of significant local fiscal powers on business and alleged existence of a threshold in decentralization-macroindicators relationship are also confirmed.

Land tax in the largest cities of the Far Eastern federal district: comparative analysis

The article contains a comparative analysis of land taxation in the largest cities of the Russian Far East and includes: assessment of land resources by categories and types of ownership, differentiation of land tax rates by types of permitted use and cadastral value by segments of local land markets. A specific feature of the Far East cities is a high share of forests, determining a relatively low share of private property in the structure of urban lands. The real fiscal autonomy of a local self-government bodies in Russian Federation in the field of land and property policy was proved in this work.

10. Local Government

This chapter examines the institution of local government. This topic is often neglected in constitutional law studies, on the rather simplistic basis that since the United Kingdom is not in a legal sense a ‘federal country’ it is only the national governmental system that merits close attention. The suggestion made here is that analysis of the role played by local government institutions reveals a great deal about the nature of ‘democracy’ within our modern constitution. The chapter focuses in general terms on the evolution of ideas relating to localism, tradition, and the ‘modernisation’ of local government and on local government’s changing constitutional status during the course of the twentieth century. More specifically, the chapter examines trends in the institutional structure of the local government sector (and especially the abolition of the Greater London Council and metropolitan counties in the mid-1980s), developments relating to the fiscal autonomy of local government throughout that period, the role played by the judiciary in determining the limits of local government autonomy, and changes in one of the most important areas of local authority activity – the provision of council housing.

Between the Devil and Lying Angels: An Invitation for a New Perspective on State Interference in Local Government Fiscal Autonomy in Nigeria

One of the most contested issues in Nigeria’s political landscape and federal structure is the debate on the fiscal autonomy of the Local Government as the third tier of government. The literature on the subject appears to zero down the issue of Local Government fiscal autonomy to a political ‘devil’. The position of existing scholarship on the subject concludes that by taking advantage of Sections 7 and 162 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, it is common practice for the State Governors to usurp the autonomy of the Local Governments. The Governors are also accused of using the Joint Account framework to control the statutory allocations of the Local Governments. Hence, Local Governments in Nigeria lacks fiscal autonomy which is one of the main principles of the three tiers of government structure. However, the underlying politics that has played out in the Fourth Republic in Nigeria reveals that this historical and legalistic perception does not provide a complete explanation of the problem. This is because the literature does not consider the role of the political elite at the Local Government level in sustaining the shrewd nature of State and Local Governments interaction in Nigeria’s Federal structure, rather the existing literature focused entirely on the governor as a ‘devil’ and ignores the role of the political class at the grassroots level as “lying angels”. This paper is therefore an invitation for a deeper theoretical deconstruction of this phenomenon to stimulate an encompassing and interesting perceptive on what we conceptualize as State-Local Government Interactions in Nigeria (SLIN). Our primary objective is to draw attention to the role of the personalities of the political class at the grassroots level which makes up the highest cadre of the hierarchy in the Local Government in shaping SLIN. We present a case that future debates should go beyond “devil” and also focus on the profound role of “lying angels”.

Between the Devil and Lying Angels: An Invitation for a New Perspective on State Interference in Local Government Fiscal Autonomy in Nigeria

One of the most contested issues in Nigeria’s political landscape and federal structure is the debate on the fiscal autonomy of the Local Government as the third tier of government. The literature on the subject appears to zero down the issue of Local Government fiscal autonomy to a political ‘devil’. The position of existing scholarship on the subject concludes that by taking advantage of Sections 7 and 162 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, it is common practice for the State Governors to usurp the autonomy of the Local Governments. The Governors are also accused of using the Joint Account framework to control the statutory allocations of the Local Governments. Hence, Local Governments in Nigeria lacks fiscal autonomy which is one of the main principles of the three tiers of government structure. However, the underlying politics that has played out in the Fourth Republic in Nigeria reveals that this historical and legalistic perception does not provide a complete explanation of the problem. This is because the literature does not consider the role of the political elite at the Local Government level in sustaining the shrewd nature of State and Local Governments interaction in Nigeria’s Federal structure, rather the existing literature focused entirely on the governor as a ‘devil’ and ignores the role of the political class at the grassroots level as “lying angels”. This paper is therefore an invitation for a deeper theoretical deconstruction of this phenomenon to stimulate an encompassing and interesting perceptive on what we conceptualize as State-Local Government Interactions in Nigeria (SLIN). Our primary objective is to draw attention to the role of the personalities of the political class at the grassroots level which makes up the highest cadre of the hierarchy in the Local Government in shaping SLIN. We present a case that future debates should go beyond “devil” and also focus on the profound role of “lying angels”.

Between the Devil and Lying Angels: An Invitation for a New Perspective on State Interference in Local Government Fiscal Autonomy in Nigeria

One of the most contested issues in Nigeria’s political landscape and federal structure is the debate on the fiscal autonomy of the Local Government as the third tier of government. The literature on the subject appears to zero down the issue of Local Government fiscal autonomy to a political ‘devil’. The position of existing scholarship on the subject concludes that by taking advantage of Sections 7 and 162 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, it is common practice for the State Governors to usurp the autonomy of the Local Governments. The Governors are also accused of using the Joint Account framework to control the statutory allocations of the Local Governments. Hence, Local Governments in Nigeria lacks fiscal autonomy which is one of the main principles of the three tiers of government structure. However, the underlying politics that has played out in the Fourth Republic in Nigeria reveals that this historical and legalistic perception does not provide a complete explanation of the problem. This is because the literature does not consider the role of the political elite at the Local Government level in sustaining the shrewd nature of State and Local Governments interaction in Nigeria’s Federal structure, rather the existing literature focused entirely on the governor as a ‘devil’ and ignores the role of the political class at the grassroots level as “lying angels”. This paper is therefore an invitation for a deeper theoretical deconstruction of this phenomenon to stimulate an encompassing and interesting perceptive on what we conceptualize as State-Local Government Interactions in Nigeria (SLIN). Our primary objective is to draw attention to the role of the personalities of the political class at the grassroots level which makes up the highest cadre of the hierarchy in the Local Government in shaping SLIN. We present a case that future debates should go beyond “devil” and also focus on the profound role of “lying angels”.

How Does Fiscal Autonomy Influence Fiscal Outcomes Depending on Corruption

As fiscal decentralization has been vigorously implemented, fiscal autonomy has become more prevalent in subnational governments. However, fiscal outcomes with greater fiscal autonomy depend upon how well and how responsibly government finances are managed. This study examines how fiscal autonomy affects fiscal outcomes depending on the level of corruption by using a panel data set of 83 cities in South Korea from 2010 to 2017. According to the results, fiscal autonomy causes local governments to spend more. However, its effectiveness may differ based on the composition of fiscal autonomy and its expenditure categories. Additionally, this study finds that less corrupt local governments spend less and have less debt under higher levels of fiscal autonomy.