Fiscal powers of municipalities in Russia’s resource-rich regions and fixed capital investment

Abstract

The article considers the nature and limits of the impact local fiscal decentralization exerts on private fixed capital investments in resource-rich Russia’s regions. The relevance of this topic is due, firstly, to the fact that sufficient expenditure and revenue powers at the local level ensure sustainable economic development, and secondly, the lack of research on relationship between investments and local fiscal decentralization in Russia. The study confirms the existence of an inverted U-shaped curve in the investment-decentralization association for the group of resource-rich regions as well as the superiority of revenue decentralization over expenditure decentralization in terms of its impact on economic development. For 2009—2016, investments were the highest when local fiscal decentralization was 46—47% and 43—51% in expenditure and revenue aspects, respectively (for Russia as a whole, 35—36% and 33—34%). Tax revenues in those figures do not exceed 30 p.p., the rest is occupied by earmarked grants (subsidies) and, especially, general-purpose grants (“dotatsii”). The excess of the optimal level of revenue decentralization over the expenditure one in resource-rich regions is explained by drivers of relatively large local powers there — less dependence on federal transfers, low regional tax burden, and greater elasticity of regional fiscal policy to external factors. The overall excess of optimal levels in comparison to Russia as a whole is explained by high local demand for both differentiation of expenditures and intraregional intergovernmental redistribution in those regions. Reduction of fiscal decentralization for 2008—2018 curbed private investment. The greatest losses were incurred by lack of revenue decentralization in the resource-rich regions, which could have reached more than 80% of the median investments.