Scaling up: A path to effective development

Poverty reduction, Hunger, MDGs, Interventions, Political dynamics, Capacity, Development assistance, Scaling up,

Economic Integration of Eurasia: Opportunities and Challenges of Global Significance

With the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991, a new frontier in the process of globalization of the world economy opened up: the economic integration of the Eurasian "super-continent". This paper begins to explore the process and prospects of economic integration of the huge land-mass that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans and from the Arctic Sea to the Indian Ocean. Since the Eurasian economic integration process is of global significance, there are also geo-political aspects and implications to be considered. This paper touches on some of these at the end, but focuses principally on exploring the economic dimensions and significance of the integration process of Eurasia. It compiles evidence on Eurasian integration in the areas of energy and non-energy trade and transport, illicit drug trade, investment and capital flows, migration, and communication and knowledge. It concludes with a consideration of the institutional and political dimensions that affect regional cooperation for Eurasia and with some broad policy recommendations. The paper represents only a first step in what is necessarily a major research undertaking. But the authors hope that it will provoke thought, debate and follow-up research.Capital flows, China, economic integration, Energy, Eurasia, European Union, illicit drugs, India, migration, Russia, trade

Public finance, trade, and development : what have we learned?

Interdependence of trade and public finance policy are important considerations in designing macroeconomic policy, public revenue policy, and public expenditure policy. A competitive real exchange rate, improved trade performance, and trade liberalization are all built on the base of sound fiscal management. Trade policies and trade liberalization may, however have a negative effect on fiscal balances, which must be considered and compensated for. Improving competitiveness and reducing protection is likely to involve reform of both trade tariffs and domestic taxation. Greater reliance on efficiently designed user charges will also help make a country more competitive internationally. Correct priorities should be set for public expenditures - whether they are rising or falling - to ensure that they are supportive of trade and of tradeable goods production.Public Sector Economics&Finance,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research

The Assignment of Local Government Revenues in Developing Countries

Local governments play an important role in the public sector of many developing countries. They are frequently responsible for a wide range of public services, many of which are financed by resources raised locally. Particularly in rapidly growing urban areas, local authorities have been faced with ever-increasing responsibilities, poorly matched by limited and often stagnant resources with which the expanding expenditure requirements. The resulting \u27fiscal gap\u27 between expenditure requirements and resource availability for local government can be addressed by reducing public service levels, by increasing nominal tax levels, by increasing tax effort, or by reassigning fiscal responsibility, i.e., shifting responsibility for some expenditure functions away from local governments, increasing local revenue authority, and increasing transfers from higher level governments. This paper explores the question of which revenue sources should be allocated to local governments in developing countries. In doing this, extensive reference is made to actual experience in these countries by providing descriptive evidence and an assessment of the revenue assignments to local governments, particularly in urban areas

Fiscal Decentralization and Intergovernmental Transfers in Less Developed Countries

This article addresses the issue of fiscal decentralization in developing countries, and the use of intergovernmental transfers to achieve this objective. We find that developing countries have more centralized fiscal structures and argue that this is consistent with the theory of fiscal federalism. Economic development, however, does push the advantage toward decentralization. We also show that developing countries use a wide variety of transfer instruments to fund local governments, and that these instruments give the national government varying degrees of control over local government finances

Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Developing Countries

The financing and management problems of many of the largest cities in developing countries have be­gun to attract the serious attention of economists. Several factors explain why these issues have been so long ignored: the traditional concerns of development economists have been macro growth models and the agricultural sector; the urban fiscal problem was small in relation to the financial problems of the central gov­ernment; aid donors dealt with central governments; the fiscal data of local governments were scanty; and troublesome local government issues seemed better left to administrative specialists. Things have changed, pri­marily because the fiscal problems of cities have become national concerns and because donors have recognized that the success of capital projects in urban areas is closely tied to the ability of local governments to meet recurrent cost obligations. This chapter addresses an increasingly important aspect of urbanization in developing countries--the problems and practices of urban government finances. It identifies and analyzes the most important pressures on local budgets, suggests major options for reforms, and sets out constraints on improvements. An important limitation to this effort is the inadequacy of comparable data, as reflected by the paucity of empirical support for these arguments

Delivering and Financing Public Services in Metropolitan Areas

The inadequate level of public services in the metropolitan areas of developing countries, and the prospects of continued high level of growth of city populations over the next three decades will almost certainly cause national leaders to revisit their urban strategy. The goal in this chapter is to support such efforts by reviewing the state of metropolitan governance and finance in developing countries, suggesting the lessons that might be learned from theory and from the international experience, and considering the policy reform choices that are open. There is a rich body of research literature on the subject of urban governance and finance in the industrial countries. But in developing countries, where the problems and reform options are fundamentally different, there is much less research, relatively little information that can be used to assess the success of policy, and almost no comparative data. We focus in this chapter specifically on the opportunities and challenges of metropolitan governments. We do so because the large cities around the developing world are where in the foreseeable future a large share of economic growth and its sources - innovation, competitiveness, skills, entrepreneurship, integration into global productive and knowledge networks and so on - will be located. Moreover, the special issues faced by metropolitan areas in developing countries are, if anything, even more neglected than the general urban management and finance issues. However, much of our analysis and many of our conclusions also apply to the more general challenges of urban service provision and finance in developing countries. In the next section of this chapter, we summarize the evidence about the magnitude of the public servicing problems facing large urban governments. We then turn to the models of governance that are used to deliver assigned services within metropolitan areas and to the efficiency-equity trade-offs involved. In sections 4 and 5, the most commonly used financing models are described and evaluated. Section 6 concludes and suggests a general policy direction