Fiscal federalism in big developing countries: China and India

In South and East Asian countries a highly centralized government prevails, although recently some trends are moving toward a greater degree of decentralization. Also the two giants China and India, which cannot rely on a merely centralized Government, have experienced a greater or lesser degree of fiscal unionism. As to China the local government system provides four levels: provincial level; city level; county level; township level. Intergovernmental fiscal relations were revamped by the 1994 reform that established a new tax sharing system and gave local governments more control over the administration of local taxes but no significant degree of tax autonomy and no substantial expenditure assignments. The local financial revenue mainly derives from local taxes, shared taxes, and nontax revenue. As to India, the federal system is quite complex. The center-states relations are envisaged in the Constitution also for the financial aspects: two constitutional amendments adopted in 1992 made India one of the most politically decentralized countries among developing ones. However, the implementation of the decentralization program is still lagging: till now India seems to have considered decentralization mainly in terms of the local election system, without the transfer of all functions provided for devolution to local bodies. Only India set up a different system of local bodies in rural and urban areas with different expenditure responsibilities and financing powers. On the contrary, China has a unitary fiscal system. In India it is necessary to redesign the transfer system to improve accountability, incentives and equity, whereas in China, the fiscal revenue sharing schemes limit intergovernmental budget transfers. Finally, the rule of hard budget constraint in China is faced by all levels of government, while in India sub-national governments face soft budget constraint.

Tax system and tax reforms in India

This paper is part of a wider research on South-East Asia countries' taxation carried on under the supervision of. V. Tanzi. India is a federal republic and a big, highly populated and poor country, which however since some years has entered the catching up stage of development and shows impressive rates of GDP growth. General Government budget is structurally imbalanced and public debt stays high. Public spending (about 25 percent of GDP) is mainly devoted to general services, defense, and the support of economic activities, rather than to public health and welfare programs. Total fiscal pressure (about 17 percent of GDP) is in line with per capita GDP and is shared evenly enough between central and states governments. The structure of the tax system is not much beyond the Musgravian "early stage". A complex structure of taxes on goods and services is largely the main heading of the tax system and it is difficultly moving towards a VAT-kind structure. Direct taxes still are in an infant state, both as weight as well as structure. Import duties remain at not negligible levels. Social contributions are entirely lacking. A tax system of a country like India unavoidably raises more than one problem: foremost among these problems appear to be a too large dominance of a complex and obsolete indirect taxation and the fiscal relations among government layers. The road to updating and improving the Indian tax system has been entered since the early 1990s, but the reform is still largely to be accomplished. Introducing VAT ( so successfully adopted in other developing countries ) is the most striking but not the only example.

Intergovernmental equalization grants: some fundamental principles.

Propositions related to intergovernmental equalization grants are always implicitly or explicitly derived from one model of government or another. The paper assumes that governments are competitive organisms. In such a frame of reference, equalization payments serve to insure that all the units in a decentralized governmental system have a chance to share in the benefits of competition. In other words, equalization payments are stabilization instruments. As such they will generally have an effect on the interpersonal distribution of income, but they are not motivated by that effect. The paper also argues that economic globalization increases the need for equalization grants.

Saracco e i problemi finanziari del Regno d'Italia

Giuseppe Saracco fu uno strenuo paladino della corretta gestione del bilancio ed ebbe a cuore il difficile risanamento delle finanze pubbliche. Esponente caratteristico di una tradizione tipicamente sardo-piemontese, fu molto attivo nelle discussioni parlamentari relative ai bilanci, sebbene alle sue riflessioni non sempre seguirono proposte fattive. Non mancò di assumere posizioni molto critiche nei confronti di chi proponeva politiche pericolose per gli equilibri della finanza pubblica. La sua competenza e la lunga esperienza maturata in Senato e come ministro lo portarono ad assumere la responsabilità di un governo in una situazione alquanto problematica. Il suo esecutivo, che era visto come governo di transizione, durò solamente otto mesi, ma Saracco rivendicò a sé il merito di aver tutelato l'ordine pubblico, di aver consentito la ripresa dell'attività legislativa e di aver favorito una rapida approvazione dei bilanci e della legge sull'emigrazione.Governo, Europa pre-1913 - Miscellanea

Explaining differences in environmental governance patterns between Canada, Italy and the United States.

The objective of the paper is to formulate a hypothesis that can help explain the different patterns of environmental governance in three countries: Canada and the United States (both federal states) and Italy (a decentralized unitary state). To that effect, we will make use of what is a robust theory of the assignment of powers in federal and decentralized unitary states on the role of competition as a driving force in shaping these assignments. The differing patterns of environmental governance we wish to explain are that most environmental policies are enacted and implemented by the national government in the United States, by provincial governments in Canada, and by both national and regional governments in Italy.

La teoria economica dell'associazionismo tra enti locali

La gestione associata di servizi locali riguarda tutte quelle forme di cooperazione tra enti locali che comportano una gestione unitaria di uno o piu' servizi ed e' anche uno degli strumenti principali per affrontare e cercare di risolvere il problema della polverizzazione dei piccoli comuni e della ripartizione delle competenze tra piu' livelli di governo. Infatti, la costruzione di un efficiente sistema di governo decentrato richiede la presenza di attori locali adeguati e quindi, data la prevalenza nel nostro paese di comuni di piccole dimensioni, la via della gestione unitaria dei servizi per piu' enti locali sembra essere quella da perseguire. Tra le forme associative previste dal Testo unico delle leggi sull'ordinamento degli enti locali per la gestione associata di servizi si annoverano le convenzioni, i consorzi, le unioni di comuni, l'esercizio associato di funzioni e gli accordi di programma. In questo lavoro l'analisi e' focalizzata sull'unione, che sembra essere considerata dalla maggior parte degli studiosi lo strumento piu' adeguato a rivitalizzare i comuni di minori dimensioni. Inoltre, all'interno del concetto piu' ampio di aggregazione abbiamo tenuta separata la fusione, da intendersi tra giurisdizioni dello stesso livello, e la cooperazione, che puo' essere orizzontale o verticale. Nel discutere di questi temi le questioni economiche che abbiamo considerato riguardano le economie di scala, le economie di varieta' , l'equivalenza fiscale e gli effetti di traboccamento, a cui si puo' aggiungere la problematica connessa con la semplificazione amministrativa e con i costi di adempimento che la pubblica amministrazione, nel suo complesso, impone agli operatori.

A novel coordinated function of Myosin II with GOLPH3 controls centralspindlin localization during cytokinesis in Drosophila.

In animal cell cytokinesis interaction of non-muscle Myosin II (NMII) with F-actin provides the dominant force for pinching the mother cell into two daughters. Here we demonstrate that celibe (cbe) is a missense allele of zipper, which encodes the Drosophila Myosin heavy chain. cbe mutation impairs binding of Zipper protein to the regulatory light chain Spaghetti Squash (Sqh). In dividing spermatocytes from cbe males, Sqh fails to concentrate at the equatorial cortex, resulting in thin actomyosin rings that are unable to constrict. We show that cbe mutation impairs localization of the Phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate [PI(4)P] binding protein Golgi phosphoprotein 3 (GOLPH3) and maintenance of centralspindlin at the cell equator of telophase cells. Our results further demonstrate that GOLPH3 protein associates with Sqh and directly binds the centralspindlin subunit Pavarotti. We propose that during cytokinesis the reciprocal dependence between Myosin and PI(4)P-GOLPH3 regulates centralspindlin stabilization at the invaginating plasma membrane and contractile ring assembly

GOLPH3 protein controls organ growth by interacting with TOR signaling proteins in Drosophila

The oncoprotein GOLPH3 (Golgi phosphoprotein 3) is an evolutionarily conserved phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate effector, mainly localized to the Golgi apparatus, where it supports organelle architecture and vesicular trafficking. Overexpression of human GOLPH3 correlates with poor prognosis in several cancer types and is associated with enhanced signaling downstream of mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin). However, the molecular link between GOLPH3 and mTOR remains elusive. Studies in Drosophila melanogaster have shown that Translationally controlled tumor protein (Tctp) and 14-3-3 proteins are required for organ growth by supporting the function of the small GTPase Ras homolog enriched in the brain (Rheb) during mTORC1 (mTOR complex 1) signaling. Here we demonstrate that Drosophila GOLPH3 (dGOLPH3) physically interacts with Tctp and 14-3-3ζ. RNAi-mediated knockdown of dGOLPH3 reduces wing and eye size and enhances the phenotypes of Tctp RNAi. This phenotype is partially rescued by overexpression of Tctp, 14-3-3ζ, or Rheb. We also show that the Golgi localization of Rheb in Drosophila cells depends on dGOLPH3. Consistent with dGOLPH3 involvement in Rheb-mediated mTORC1 activation, depletion of dGOLPH3 also reduces levels of phosphorylated ribosomal S6 kinase, a downstream target of mTORC1. Finally, the autophagy flux and the expression of autophagic transcription factors of the TFEB family, which anti correlates with mTOR signaling, are compromised upon reduction of dGOLPH3. Overall, our data provide the first in vivo demonstration that GOLPH3 regulates organ growth by directly associating with mTOR signaling proteins

Comparison of mouse mammary gland imaging techniques and applications: Reflectance confocal microscopy, GFP Imaging, and ultrasound

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Genetically engineered mouse models of mammary gland cancer enable the <it>in vivo </it>study of molecular mechanisms and signaling during development and cancer pathophysiology. However, traditional whole mount and histological imaging modalities are only applicable to non-viable tissue.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We evaluated three techniques that can be quickly applied to living tissue for imaging normal and cancerous mammary gland: reflectance confocal microscopy, green fluorescent protein imaging, and ultrasound imaging.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the current study, reflectance confocal imaging offered the highest resolution and was used to optically section mammary ductal structures in the whole mammary gland. Glands remained viable in mammary gland whole organ culture when 1% acetic acid was used as a contrast agent. Our application of using green fluorescent protein expressing transgenic mice in our study allowed for whole mammary gland ductal structures imaging and enabled straightforward serial imaging of mammary gland ducts in whole organ culture to visualize the growth and differentiation process. Ultrasound imaging showed the lowest resolution. However, ultrasound was able to detect mammary preneoplastic lesions 0.2 mm in size and was used to follow cancer growth with serial imaging in living mice.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In conclusion, each technique enabled serial imaging of living mammary tissue and visualization of growth and development, quickly and with minimal tissue preparation. The use of the higher resolution reflectance confocal and green fluorescent protein imaging techniques and lower resolution ultrasound were complementary.</p