Abstract: Subnational insolvency is a reoccurring event in development, as demonstrated by historical and modern episodes of subnational defaults in both developed and developing countries. Insolvency procedures become more important as countries decentralize expenditure, taxation, and borrowing, and broaden subnational credit markets. As the first cross-country survey of procedures to resolve subnational financial distress, this paper has particular relevance for decentralizing countries. The authors explain central features and variations of subnational insolvency mechanisms across countries. They identify judicial, administrative, and hybrid procedures, and show how entry point and political factors drive their design. Like private insolvency law, subnational insolvency procedures predictably allocate default risk, while providing breathing space for orderly debt restructuring and fiscal adjustment. Policymakers' desire to mitigate the tension between creditor rights and the need to maintain essential public services, to strengthen ex ante fiscal rules, and to harden subnational budget constraints are motivations specific to the public sector.

Subnational insolvency is a reoccurring event in development, as demonstrated by historical and modern episodes of subnational defaults in both developed and developing countries. Insolvency procedures become more important as countries decentralize expenditure, taxation, and borrowing, and broaden subnational credit markets. As the first cross-country survey of procedures to resolve subnational financial distress, this paper has particular relevance for decentralizing countries. The authors explain central features and variations of subnational insolvency mechanisms across countries. They identify judicial, administrative, and hybrid procedures, and show how entry point and political factors drive their design. Like private insolvency law, subnational insolvency procedures predictably allocate default risk, while providing breathing space for orderly debt restructuring and fiscal adjustment. Policymakers' desire to mitigate the tension between creditor rights and the need to maintain essential public services, to strengthen ex ante fiscal rules, and to harden subnational budget constraints are motivations specific to the public sector.

With decentralization and urbanization, the debts of state and local governments and of quasi-public agencies have grown in importance. Rapid urbanization in developing countries requires large-scale infrastructure financing to help absorb influxes of rural populations. Borrowing enables state and local governments to capture the benefits of major capital investments immediately and to finance infrastructure more equitably across multiple generations of service users. With debt comes the risk of insolvency. Subnational debt crises have reoccurred in both developed and developing countries. Restructuring debt and ensuring its sustainability confront moral hazard and fiscal incentives in a multilevel government system; individual subnational governments might free-ride common resources, and public officials at all levels might shift the cost of excessive borrowing to future generations. This book brings together the reform experiences of emerging economies and developed countries. Written by leading practitioners and experts in public finance in the context of multilevel government systems, the book examines the interaction of markets, regulators, subnational borrowers, creditors, national governments, taxpayers, ex-ante rules, and ex-post insolvency systems in the quest for subnational fiscal discipline. Such a quest is intertwined with a country’s historical, political, and economic context. The formal legal framework interacts with political reality to influence the dynamics of and incentives for reform. Often, the resolution of a subnational debt crisis unfolds in the context of macroeconomic stabilization and structural reforms. The book includes reforms that have not been covered by previous literature, such as those of China, Colombia, France, Hungary, Mexico, and South Africa. The book also presents a comprehensive review of how the United States developed its debt market for state and local governments, through a series of reforms that are path dependent, including the reforms and lessons learned following state defaults in the 1840s and the debates that shaped the enactment of Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code in 1937. Looking forward, pressures on subnational finance are likely to continue—from the fragility of global recovery, the potentially higher cost of capital, refinancing risks, and sovereign risks. This book is essential reading for anyone wanting to know the challenges and reform options in debt restructuring, insolvency frameworks, and public debt market development.

Fiscal decentralization is becoming a pressing issue in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting demands for a greater local voice in spending decisions and efforts to strengthen social cohesion. Against this backdrop, this paper seeks to distill the lessons for an effective fiscal decentralization reform, focusing on the macroeconomic aspects. The main findings for sub-Saharan African countries that have decentralized, based on an empirical analysis and four case studies (Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda), are as follows: • Determinants and effectiveness: Empirical results suggest that (1) the major driving forces behind fiscal decentralization in sub-Saharan Africa include efforts to defuse ethnic conflicts, the initial level of income, and the urban-ization rate, whereas strength of democracy is not an important determi-nant for decentralization; and (2) decentralization in sub-Saharan Africa is associated with higher growth in the presence of stronger institutions. • Spending assignments: The allocation of spending across levels of gov-ernment in the four case studies is broadly consistent with best practice. However, in Uganda, unlike in the other three case studies, subnational governments have little flexibility to make spending decisions as a result of a deconcentrated rather than a devolved system of government. • Own revenue: The assignment of taxing powers is broadly in line with best practice in the four case studies, with the bulk of subnational revenue coming from property taxes and from fees for local services. However, own revenues are a very small fraction of subnational spending, reflecting weak cadaster systems and a high level of informality in the economy.

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.

Does decentralization enhance service delivery and poverty reduction? The expert contributors to this book address this fundamental question faced by policymakers and scholars in developing and advanced countries. The book illustrates that it is equally important for international agencies as well as bilateral donors to provide advice and assistance on decentralization that effectively supports poverty reduction. The volume builds on insights from the recent, political economy developments in the intergovernmental literature reviewed in the Handbook of Fiscal Federalism, and presents new empirical evidence on the effects of decentralization in different parts of the world. Policy-oriented papers evaluating the effectiveness of decentralized service delivery are presented. The role of institutions and the importance of sequencing of policies in ensuring effective outcomes are also considered. The volume presents some insightful empirical studies of the decentralization process from Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa. With a detailed empirical analysis of effective outcomes of public policies implemented at the sub-national level, and a focus on method, this book will be of great interest to academics specializing in public sector economics and public finance, and to national and international policymakers.

This book is a vision of how economic policy will evolve in developing countries over the next three-to-five years, delivered by renown practitioners working at the world's leading development institution.