The Impact Of Fiscal Decentralization And The Soft Budget Constraint On The Local Government Debt

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Economic Policy, grade: A, University of Nairobi (School of Business), course: PhD Economics, language: English, abstract: The author aims to study the impacts of fiscal decentralization and soft budget constraint on the scale of local government debts. Moreover, the effect of soft budget constraint on the scale of local government debt under the different extent of fiscal decentralization will be discussed. Due to the linkage between economic growth and the fiscal decentralization, the expansion in the local government debt is closely related to the fiscal decentralization and the soft budget constraint (SBC) – the expectation that the local governments would be bailed out by the central government if they face debt challenges. Based on the literature fiscal decentralization is linked to local government debts as literature indicates that fiscal decentralization leads to the decentralization of the expenditure without the revenue collection powers. The Chinese local governments have increased expenditure budgets on public services but the powers of taxation are centralized. To bridge the revenue gaps, the local governments take up debts that are sunk into infrastructure and other low revenue generating investments. Soft budget constraints are thus a product of fiscal decentralization as they are based on the principal – agent relationship between the politicians and the voters, central government and local government and the local governments and the SOEs within the local jurisdictions.

November 1997 A local government's ability to extract a bailout from a central government depends on how big it is. Larger localities may rationally expect bailouts-and thus operate under softer budget constraints. Effective fiscal decentralization requires an institutional structure that minimizes these adverse incentives. Subnational governments are assuming greater fiscal responsibility in many developing and transition countries. There is concern, however, that fiscal decentralization may weaken fiscal discipline-that local authorities may undertake commitments or incur debt obligations that subsequently result in massive central government support, in the form of extraordinary transfers, or bailouts. (Recent experience in major U.S. cities shows that these problems are not restricted to developing countries.) Such bailouts could in turn cause national fiscal imbalances, excessive borrowing, and macroeconomic instability. Some analysts recommend that central authorities maintain strict control over the fiscal behavior of lower-level governments, but others argue that such controls could undercut the goals of fiscal decentralization, including autonomy. Wildasin shows that central authorities may have strong incentives to prop up the finances of local governments when the public services provided locally benefit the rest of society. The prospect of such interventions may in turn create incentives for localities to underprovide services that produce substantial spillover benefits, using local resources instead for purposes that may benefit local constituencies but not nonresidents. When central fiscal interventions are big enough, and when a loss of local control over the use of fiscal resources is not too costly to local residents, local decisionmakers will act to induce central government bailouts, resulting in inefficient outcomes for the system as a whole. This is not to say that fiscal decentralization produces perverse incentives or requires central government control over local fiscal policies. But incentives for bailouts can be especially strong when local governments are considered too big to fail-for example, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC (in the United States) and São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (in Brazil). In such cases, the repercussions from major breakdowns in the provision of services-or in debt servicing-can be too costly for central governments to ignore. Problems of fiscal discipline may result not because there is too much fiscal decentralization, says Wildasin, but because there is too little. It may make sense to carry out more thorough decentralization-for example, devolving fiscal authorities to smaller jurisdictions or special-purpose functional units, or subdividing large subnational jurisdictions into many smaller units. This paper-a product of the Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to understand fiscal decentralization.

Delegating fiscal decision making power to sub-national governments has been an area of interest for both academics and policymakers given the expectation that it may lead to better and more efficient provision of public goods and services. Decentralization has, however, often occurred on the expenditure and less on the revenue side, creating “vertical fiscal imbalances” where sub-national governments’ expenditures are not financed through their own revenues. The mismatch between own revenues and expenditures may have consequences for public finance performance. This study constructs a large sample of general and subnational level fiscal data beginning in 1980 from the IMF’s Government Finance Statistics Yearbook. Extending the literature to the balance sheet approach, this paper examines the effects of vertical fiscal imbalances on government debt. The results indicate that vertical fiscal imbalances are relevant in explaining government debt accumulation suggesting a degree of caution when promoting fiscal decentralization. This paper also underlines the role of data covering the general government and its subectors for comprehensive analysis of fiscal performance.

A multi-country study of the conditions under which decentralized countries might ensure fiscal discipline.

This book draws on experiences in developing countries to bridge the gap between the conventional textbook treatment of fiscal decentralization and the actual practice of subnational government finance. The extensive literature about the theory and practice is surveyed and longstanding problems and new questions are addressed. It focuses on the key choices that must be made in decentralizing, on how economic and political factors shape the choices that countries make, and on how, by paying more attention to the need for a more comprehensive approach and the critical connections between different components of decentralization reform, everyone involved might get more for their money.

This paper explores the impact of fiscal decentralization on fiscal policy performance in a large sample of advanced and developing economies. The findings suggest that a larger share of decentralized expenditure is associated with a stronger fiscal balance; however, fiscal decentralization can lead to more pro-cyclical fiscal policy. Thus, the design and pace of fiscal decentralization need to be tailored to the specificities of the economy. Countries that have already established strong accountablity and budget management capacity at the local level can benefit from fiscal decentralization. In contrast, in economies prone to large volatility from internal and external shocks, the central government may need to retain a sufficient share of expenditure and revenue to conduct counter-cyclical policies. Finally, the pace of expenditure and revenue decentralization should be aligned.

The intergovernmental fiscal issue is highly relevant given the worldwide movement toward more decentralized governance in both industrial and developing countries. Over the course of five decades Japan has developed a robust system of decentralized governance. This book investigates fiscal decentralization and local finance in Japan wi