The role of fiscal delegation in a monetary union: a survey of the political economy issues

Current proposals to address the European sovereign debt crisis envision some sort of fiscal union to complement the Economic and Monetary Union, backed by stronger sanctions against countries that deviate from budget balance. We argue that sanctions are an indirect approach to balancing budgets, and that member states, and Europe as a whole, could instead consider delegating effective fiscal instruments with a direct budgetary impact to an independent authority. Outside of a fiscal union, a solvent country could establish an independent fiscal authority at the national level, with a mandate to maintain long-term budget balance. Delegating a few powerful fiscal instruments to an institution of this type could cut off speculation about fiscal sustainability without ceding sovereignty to a supranational body. Inside a fiscal union, delegating one or more fiscal levers of each Eurozone member state to a national or European fiscal authority could eliminate moral hazard without relying on sanctions per se. Many fiscal instruments can serve to balance budgets, but in the context of a monetary union the chosen instrument should ideally be one that increases competitiveness when recession looms. The instrument should also be one that is quick and simple to adjust, with a large budgetary impact and minimal redistributional consequences. For consistency with these criteria, we argue that fiscal adjustments should operate on the spending side, rather than the revenue side, and that spending adjustments should affect the prices the government pays, instead of the quantities of goods and services it purchases. We discuss in detail how a system of this sort could be implemente

Decision Markets for Policy Advice

The main cause of bad policy decisions is arguably a lack of information. Decisionmakers often do not make use of relevant information about the consequences of the policies they choose. The problem, however, is not simply that public officials do not exploit readily available information. It is also that they do not take full advantage of creative mechanisms that could expand the supply of policy-relevant information. Among the most innovative and potentially useful information-generating mechanisms are speculative markets. Speculative markets produce public information about the perceived likelihood of future events as a natural byproduct of voluntary exchange. Speculative markets do a remarkable job of aggregating information; in every head-to-head field comparison made so far, their forecasts have been at least as accurate as those of competing institutions, such as official government estimates. Many organizations are now trying to take advantage of this effect, experimenting with the creation of "prediction markets" or "information markets," to forecast future events such as product sales and project completion dates. This chapter examines the uses and limitations of decision markets. Decision markets are information markets designed to inform a particular policy decision, by directly estimating relevant consequences of that decision. After reviewing the weaknesses of existing institutions, the mechanics of decision markets, and a concrete example, this chapter reviews the requirements, advantages, and disadvantages of decision markets. The chapter also takes a close look at a particular application of this tool: the controversial yet illuminating attempt to establish a "Policy Analysis Market" to forecast the consequences of major policy U.S. choices in the Middle East.

Trans-urban Networks of Learning, Mega Events and Policy Tourism: The Case of Manchester's Commonwealth and Olympic Games Projects

This paper argues for a rethinking of our understanding of what and where go into the ‘urban’ in the New Urban Politics (NUP). It contends that these issues have always been more complex, complicated and, most importantly, contested than has sometimes appeared to be the case in the literature. Using the example of one trans-urban policy learning network—that around the city of Manchester’s bids for the Olympic and Commonwealth Games—the paper makes the case for taking seriously the politics around comparison and referencing in making possible the NUP. It argues that there is a need to study the circuits, networks and webs in and through which urban knowledge and learning are constituted and moved around, and that often underpin the territorial outcomes that have been the traditional focus of scholars working on the NUP

Water Management in France: Delegation and Irreversibility

The problem that we address in this paper stems from the trend to delegation in the water management field. It refers to the municipality’s negotiating disadvantage in the face of cartelized water management firms that makes delegation, once undertaken, virtually irreversible. We show why the characteristics of the delegation auction render is useless as a tool for collective welfare maximization. We also show that the remaining tool for achieving collective welfare maximization, i.e. the municipality’s right to revoke delegation and return to direct management, is also ineffective due to a lack of credibility that is essentially financial in nature. Thus, if the credibility of revocation could be restored, the municipality’s bargaining power could also be restored. Using standard methods of stochastic calculus, we model the municipality’s right of revocation as a call option held by the municipality. We show that the key variable for the value of this option, and thus for the municipality’s position, is the exercise price, which is partly determined by objective economic criteria and partly by legal and institutional conventions. We show that community welfare maximisation occurs at the point where the exercise price is determined exclusively by objective economic criteria. Since the delegated firm as a simple agent has the right to abrogate the contract if delegation becomes unprofitable, we then model this right as a put option held by the firm. Its value also depends to a large extent on the exercise price, which is partly determined by objective economic criteria and partly by legal and institutional conventions. Combining the exercise points of the two options enables us to determine the price-profit interval over which delegation will be acceptable to both parties. We conclude that the optimal interval will be the one where the exercise prices are determined entirely by objective economic criteria.Water management; Delegation; Insurance mechanisms; Technological Changes; Real Options

Credibility of fiscal policies and independent fiscal bodies

In this paper we address the problem of credibility in fiscal policy. In many instances fiscal policy as conducted by governments is not perceived as credible. The targets set forward by government are often not met and usually the divergence is on the negative side. Taxes are overestimated and spending is underestimated, leading to a deficit bias and growing indebtedness of governments. To enhance the credibility of fiscal policy several schemes are put forward. Most frequently used are fiscal rules that replace discretionary decision making. Fiscal rules however are difficult to sanction and although they can improve the quality of fiscal policy, they do not guarantee sound fiscal policy. Therefore it is sometimes suggested to install fiscal councils on top of the fiscal rules. Fiscal councils with tasks in forecasting and assessing fiscal policy have been and are being introduced in more and more countries. Some economists want to go further however and propose to establish fiscal councils with independent powers to conduct fiscal policy within the borderlines that parliament lays down. In this paper these tendencies are analyzed

Dynamic CGE model of the Chinese economy for fiscal and financial policy analysis

China is to become the largest economy in the world by 2020 according to the IMF forecasts. Annual growth rates of output remained around 9.3 percent on average during 1980 to 2015. It was made possible by the accumulation capital with steady flows of investment on average around 49.5 percent of GDP, increase in the human capital index from 1.8 to 2.6 in the country that has the largest population among all countries. Current account surplus stood around 3.4 percent of GDP. Such growth rates were possible due to macroeconomic stability. Market friendly growth strategy however has led to a sharp increase in the income and consumption inequality. Inequality is deeper in the rural areas than in the urban areas. A representative household in the richest quintile earns eight times more than an average household in poorest quintile. This is five times more in urban areas. The Gini coefficient was around 0.48. By this measure China has become the most unequal economy in the world. Similar disparities remain across provinces of China; per capita income of Tianjin was 99,600 Yuan compared to 22,921 Yuan of Guizhou. Chinese government has used public spending to create economic infrastructure and public services. The share of public spending and revenue has reached around 30 percent of GDP in China in recent years. Share of local government has risen steadily over years from 53 percent to 86 percent in 2013. Efficiency in the local governance thus is essential for correcting economic and social problems in China. VAT, corporation tax, business tax, consumption tax and income tax and tariffs are important sources of revenue. In 2013, these contributed to 26, 20, 16, 7, 6 and 2 percents of total revenue respectively. Compared to advance countries Chinese tax system still seems very regressive as the income tax contributes to the very small proportion of the total revenue. It is welcome to see that the share of VAT decreased from 36 to 26 percent and tax in corporate income tax rose from eight to 20 percent but the very low income tax that accounts about 6 percent of total revenue, has caused income inequality to deteriorate. The adverse consequences of tax composition are to some extent mitigated by a more reasonable structure of public spending. Education, social safety, agriculture, public services, community, transport and health had 18, 12, 11, 11, 10 seven and 7 percent of public spending respectively

Urban fiscal austerity, infrastructure provision and the struggle for regional transit in 'Motor City'

Studies suggest that urban fiscal crises trigger the institutional separation of strategic services from general purpose municipal functions. Traditional reformists have highlighted the economic benefits of regional approaches. Global austerity has created fiscal problems for central cities and suburbs alike, transforming the motives for regional solutions. This paper examines how the City of Detroit engineered a new regional arrangement with the surrounding suburbs to raise debt for the delivery of mass transit infrastructure. It represents a dual 'spatial fix' in the form of (i) a 'state territorial fix' providing fiscally stressed municipalities access to municipal bond markets and (ii) a 'speculative spatial fix' that benefits the Detroit growth coalition by linking regional mass transit to the prospect of land-use intensification. © The Author 2014

Property Taxation in the People\u27s Republic of China

A property tax is a general tax imposed on all property owners based on the value of their properties. Property taxation is common throughout the world due to its numerous advantages. It is regarded as a steady source of local government revenue. The property taxation system in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is still developing and does not include important features that would make it efficient. For instance, residential property is excluded from the tax base. This has contributed to real estate speculation, income disparity, and revenue losses. A well-functioning local property tax system in the PRC would provide an efficient, equitable and sustainable way to finance local development and government spending. By helping to align expenditure responsibilities with revenue allocations at the local level, property taxation could reduce inequality in the provision of public goods and foster local government ability to provide them. Further, it will reduce the incentive for speculative behavior mitigating housing bubbles. To further develop property taxation in the PRC it is recommended to gradually strengthen and expand the existing pilots, supported by clear principles on the delegation of taxation responsibilities, the definition of a nationally standardized tax base, an affordable tax rate, and enhanced local government capacity