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.

Reprints 23 carefully selected articles intended to provide a balanced view of the Scandinavian model of local financing, including perspectives from four of the five Nordic countries, leaving out Iceland's unique design. They cover style, reform, and performance; demand; political institutions; cost and control; and theory. Among the specific topics are reforming a centralized system of local public finance in Norway, local public expenditure in Sweden as a model in which the median voter is not necessarily decisive, real and perceived effects of changing the grant system from specific to general grants, a hedonic cost approach to cost efficiency in providing child care services, and the behavior of bureaucrats and the choice between single-purpose and multi-purpose authorities. Most of the studies consider Norway, reflecting the much greater research into the subject in that country. No subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

State and local governments are at a financial crossroads. As the federal government attempts to reduce its deficits, state governments will have to provide a greater share of support for mandatory social programs. Local governments face demands for new initiatives in education and for civic improvements. Both have obligations to employee pension plans that are large and still relatively untested. Running counter to these claims on state and local budgets is a voter effort to limit the amounts that governments may tax or spend. This fourth edition of James A. Maxwell's classic and widely acclaimed book will help both layman and lawmaker understand the choices open to their governments. It provides a lucid, nontechnical analysis of state and local finance. It gives concise descriptions of the taxes, grants, debt issues, and user charges that finance state and local government and discusses their relative virtues and drawbacks. It traces the history of state and local finance and presents statistical data on expenditures, federal aid, revenue from taxes and user charges, debt, and pension funds. The new edition, in recognition of changes since the mid-1970s, also includes a separate chapter on financing education and broadened analyses of federal grant programs, employee retirement systems, and nonguaranteed municipal debt.

The ability of a nation to finance its basic infrastructure is essential to its economic well-being in the 21st century. This second edition of State and Local Financial Instruments covers the municipal securities market in the United States from the perspective of its primary capital financing role in a fiscal federalist system, where subnational governments are responsible for financing the nationÕs essential physical infrastructure.

The design of a federal system to deal with growth, stabilization, and regional and local development issues is the primary concern of this volume, edited by Anwar Shah. The book provides analytical tools to address issues arising from globalization, localization, and regional integration. It discusses tax harmonization issues associated with subnational value added tax administration. It provides a framework for fiscal discipline in a federal system. Lessons from international experiences from policies to deal with lagging regions are drawn. The book empirically examines the effect of fiscal decentralization on the overall size of the public sector. Finally, it draws lessons from industrial countries' experiences on local governance. This important new series represents a response to several independent evaluations in recent years that have argued that development practitioners and policy makers dealing with public sector reforms in developing countries and, indeed, anyone with a concern for effective public governance could benefit from a synthesis of newer perspectives on public sector reforms. This series distills current wisdom and presents tools of analysis for improving the efficiency, equity, and efficacy of the public sector. Leading public policy experts and practitioners have contributed to the series.