{"title":"Can Statistical Capacity Building Help Reduce Procyclical Fiscal Policy in Developing Countries?","authors":"Codjo Neree Noumon, S. Tapsoba, Robert C. York","doi":"10.5089/9781475552003.001.A001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781475552003.001.A001","url":null,"abstract":"Few papers have attempted to assess the role of “capacity,” especially in the area of macroeconomic statistics. Consequently, we make an attempt to advance this literature through the construction of a “statistical capacity building index,” and then test its explanatory power on the cyclicality of government spending. Using panel data from 62 developing countries, we find evidence that improvements in this index are associated with less procyclicality of government spending over the period 1990–2012; with the significance of this relationship dependent upon the quality of administrative and technical capacity of budgetary institutions.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123412947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Europe: A Survey of Gender Budgeting Efforts","authors":"Sheila Quinn","doi":"10.5089/9781475520088.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5089/9781475520088.001","url":null,"abstract":"This paper surveys European gender budgeting efforts, which have enjoyed sustained support for more than a decade and a half. In a number of countries, gender budgeting led to significant changes in budget legislation and administrative practices. In some countries, it is also possible to tie gender budgeting efforts to expenditure and revenue policy reforms. At a time of continued fiscal austerity in Europe, gender budgeting can help inform fiscal policies to ensure gender-related goals are met. Civil society has played an active role in advocating for effective gender budgeting.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121001879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effects of Bureaucracy on Political Accountability and Electoral Selection","authors":"Yukihiro Yazaki","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2851673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2851673","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines how bureaucracy affects political accountability and electoral selection, using a three-tier political agency model consisting of voters, politicians and bureaucrats. In the model’s hierarchy, politicians are constrained by elections while bureaucrats are controlled by budgets. If voters and bureaucrats prefer different types of politicians (i.e. they have a conflict of interests), incumbents pass oversized budgets to prevent bureaucrats from engaging in strategic behaviours that damage incumbents’ reputations. If, instead, voters and bureaucrats prefer the same type of politicians (i.e. they have an alignment of interests), bureaucrats cannot obtain a concession from politicians. In the latter case, however, bureaucrats send voters a credible signal regarding an incumbent’s type, which improves electoral selection. This paper also shows that political appointment systems improve political accountability in the conflict-of-interests case while they weaken electoral selection in the alignment-of-interests case.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115877704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Federal Budget in Q1 2016: Revenues and Expenditures Continue Downward Trend","authors":"A. Mamedov, Evgenia Fomina","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2801025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2801025","url":null,"abstract":"During Q1 2016, the volume of the federal budget revenues shrank by 5.7 p.p. of GDP, in terms of expenditures the reduction hit 6.1 p.p. of GDP. Contraction of the revenue and expenditure part of the federal budget amounted to around 20% in real terms. Fall of revenues in Q1 2016 was due to contraction of non-oil and gas receipts in the volume of 4.2 p.p. of GDP. Regarding expenditure, noticeable reduction has taken place in financing of defense and national economy along growth of expenditures on social safety net to the level of Q1 2015. The federal budget defi cit has come to 3.7% of GDP against 4.2% of GDP posted in January through March 2015.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126746896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Should We Cut on the Executive in Order to Save the Constitutional State?","authors":"Krzysztof Waśniewski","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2791974","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2791974","url":null,"abstract":"Constitutional states, as a separate category of social structures, are progressively losing their economic power, as measured with their capacity to appropriate the available capital stock. Fiscal policies, and the corresponding institutions of public finance, play a significant role in the public appropriation of capital, both through direct redistribution and indirect incentives to private allocation. Policies evolve into institutions after experimentation, yet, as a species, we are not really good at experimenting with our own social structures. The case of New Zealand and their public reforms shows an interesting path, possibly to follow, so as to increase the capacity of experimenting with fiscal policies – and to devise more efficient institutions - through enhanced fiscal prerogatives of the legislative in comparison to the executive.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128674168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Role of Municipal Council in Increasing Citizen Participation at the Local Budget Process","authors":"Memet Memeti, Veli Kreci","doi":"10.17573/IPAR.2016.2-3.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17573/IPAR.2016.2-3.03","url":null,"abstract":"The paper explores the role of the municipal councilors in the budget process in the Republic of Macedonia as well as their role in motivating citizen participation in the budgetary process in the Republic of Macedonia. We demonstrate that municipalities in the Republic of Macedonia employ various forms of participatory mechanisms in the process of public policies and budgets according to their context. There are vivid dissimilarities in terms of opportunities and scope of citizen participation as well as discrepancies of councilors capacity to facilitate this process when cross-matching information and data derived from small rural and bigger urban municipalities. It is evident that very little has been accomplished in terms of defining uniformed processes and developing systems related to the relations between councilors and local community. We identify barriers that are impediment to a genuine involvement of the councilors as mediators between the Mayor and the community in the local budgeting process. We argue that any policy intervention in this dimension ought to be tailor-made, hence every municipality has its specific features that ought to be taken into account when designing an intervention to address shortcomings of the processes and the systems.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131154958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Changes in the Regulatory Base of the Budgetary Process in the December 2015","authors":"M. Goldin","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2757576","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2757576","url":null,"abstract":"In December 2015, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation developed the Guidelines for Carrying Out by Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation of a responsible borrowing/debt policy.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114208738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heterogeneous Effects of Fiscal Equalization Grants on Local Expenditures: Evidence from Two Formula-Based Variations","authors":"Michihito Ando","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2599299","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2599299","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the effects of fiscal equalization grants on total expenditure and disaggregated expenditures by exploiting two different formula-based exogenous variations in grants. Examining the institutional settings of the Japanese fiscal equalization scheme and estimating local average grant effects with a regression kink design and an instrumental variable approach, I demonstrate that there exist heterogeneous grant effects for two groups of municipalities with different fiscal conditions. That is, estimated grant effects on total expenditure are approximately one-to-one for municipalities around the threshold of grant eligibility, but much more than one-to-one for municipalities that are heavily dependent on fiscal equalization grants. In addition, grant effects on disaggregated expenditures are dispersed across different expenditure items in the former type of municipality but concentrated on construction expenditures in the latter type. I then discuss that the observed grant effect heterogeneity is a consequence of the institutional settings of the Japanese fiscal equalization scheme.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127443411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Changes in the Russian Regulatory Base of the Budget Process in June 2015","authors":"M. Goldin","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2640057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2640057","url":null,"abstract":"In June the procedure for carrying out by the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation of in-house control over procurement for federal needs.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"6 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134422402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The State Budget in Q1 2015","authors":"T. Tischenko","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2611265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2611265","url":null,"abstract":"According to the preliminary data of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, on the basis of the results of January–March 2015 the federal budget revenues fell by 0.9 p.p. of GDP, while the expenditures increased by 5.1 p.p. of GDP as compared to the same period of the previous year. In January–February 2015, the revenues of the consolidated budget of constituent entities of the Russian Federation fell by 0.5 p.p. of GDP, too, while the expenditures rose by 0.1 p.p. of GDP as compared to two months of 2014. On the basis of the results of three months of 2015, the defi cit of the federal budget amounted to 4.9% of GDP, while the consolidated budget of constituent entities of the Russian Federation was executed in January–February 2015 with a defi cit of 2.0% of GDP.","PeriodicalId":225425,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Budget; Budget Systems (Topic)","volume":"70 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126792585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}