Budgetary Regimes Research Articles

Strengthening fiscal decentralization in Russia: causes of the 2020 failure and prospective directions

Relevance. Strengthening fiscal decentralization is viewed as a crucial strategy to foster the economic development of Russian regions. Research Objective. The research aims to assess the potential impact of redistributing tax revenues, particularly VAT, among various budget levels. Data and Methods. The study employs regression analysis to investigate the correlation between the Gross Regional Product (GRP) of Russian regions and the expenditures of their consolidated budgets. A comparative analysis is also conducted, using data from the Federal Tax Service on VAT receipts to the federal budget and data from the Federal State Statistics Service on GRP and expenditure components of regional budgets from 2005 to 2021. Results. The research confirms the Russian government’s concerns regarding a possible increase in economic disparities if 40% of VAT is shifted to sub-federal levels. It reveals the negative impact that such a measure would have on specific regions. Instead, a more promising approach is to implement a special budgetary regime in select regions to stimulate their development. Conclusions. The study showcases adverse effects associated with transferring 40% of VAT to the sub-federal level. It proposes a mechanism to enhance fiscal decentralization in Russia, aiming to advance regional economic development, address economic disparities among regions, and offset any potential reduction in federal budget revenues.

Federal support for leading coastal regions: budgetary priorities and special development regimes

Federal support for leading coastal regions: budgetary priorities and special development regimes

El principio constitucional de estabilidad presupuestaria en el marco de la macroeconomía: consecuencias y dificultades de su juridificación

La reforma del art. 135 de la CE y la consiguiente incorporación del régimen de estabilidad presupuestaria han impactado en nuestro modelo de Constitución económica. Se ha reforzado el lenguaje macroeconómico presente en la CE: PIB, recesión económica, volumen de deuda pública, déficit público. Por otro lado, la constitucionalización del compromiso de estabilidad presupuestaria preexistente en el nivel europeo ha elevado la integración de España con Europa al máximo nivel y afectado profundamente nuestra política fiscal. El alcance y la vinculatoriedad del nuevo mandato constitucional pueden contrastarse con ocasión de la crisis de la COVID-19. Ello permite analizar las consecuencias y dificultades que plantea su juridificación.

Innovations on a shoestring: Consequences for job quality of public service innovations in health and social care

The article examines the innovation-job quality-employment nexus in social and health care in the United Kingdom and Sweden, respectively. Through seven case studies carried out with a common methodological and analytical framework in the two countries, it shows how the constraining factors of fiscal strictures derived from budgetary regimes and chronic labor shortages have two key consequences for innovation. The first is that in the absence of room for maneuver with regard to extrinsic job quality, intrinsic job quality becomes the primary innovation arena. Here the activation of feelings and ideologies of empathy towards patients and clients and occupational/professional pride are central. The second is that most of the innovations found aimed at addressing labor shortages are ameliorative rather than solutions, leading to the development of the concept of “coping innovations.”Both of these processes are symptomatic of “innovation on a shoestring” due to structural conditions. Certain, arguably beneficial, aspects of these constraints are identified, such as activities directed towards enhancing person-centered approaches to clients/patients and colleagues, less ‘technologization’ of care contact and opening up opportunities for non-traditional occupational and social groups in health and care work. Non-beneficial aspects of these constraints include heightened work intensity and employee turnover, an overtaxing of the Florence Nightingale ethos, and incomplete or unsatisfactory training and career development programs.

Сравнительный анализ бюджетно-налоговых отношений в нефтяной отрасли США, Канады, Великобритании и России

<span class="CharOverride-4">США, Канада </span><span class="CharOverride-4">и Великобритания в 2015–2018 гг. сталкиваются с вызовами глобального избытка </span><span class="CharOverride-4">добычи и переработки нефти, значительных суверенных долгов и бюджетной консолидации. </span><span class="CharOverride-4">В статье анализируются особенности бюджетно-налоговой политики этих стран в отношении </span><span class="CharOverride-4">нефтяной промышленности, выявляются решения, которые могут быть полезны для России. </span><span class="CharOverride-4">Проведен обзор бюджетных доходов, налоговых режимов, состава и эффективности налоговых </span><span class="CharOverride-4">льгот и бюджетных субсидий нефтяной отрасли по англоязычным первоисточникам финансовых </span><span class="CharOverride-4">и налоговых органов, неправительственных и международных организаций. Установлено, что структура </span><span class="CharOverride-4">налогов на добычу и потребление нефти в этих странах схожа </span><span class="CharOverride-4">с той, что сложилась в России. В Канаде зависимость консолидированного </span><span class="CharOverride-4">бюджета от нефтяных доходов сопоставима с Россией, а в США и Великобритании</span><span class="CharOverride-4"> она в разы ниже. Налоговая нагрузка на нефтяную </span><span class="CharOverride-4">промышленность в расчете на баррель в США вдвое больше, чем </span><span class="CharOverride-4">в России, особенно с учетом акцизов на нефтепродукты. Акцизы во </span><span class="CharOverride-4">всех трех странах весьма значительны по сравнению с обложением добычи, </span><span class="CharOverride-4">с точечными субсидиями отдельным категориям потребителей. В налоговых льготах трех </span><span class="CharOverride-4">стран преобладают инвестиционные налоговые вычеты и ускоренная амортизация. Небольшие бюджетные</span><span class="CharOverride-4">субсидии выделяются под единичные проекты через сокращение региональных роялти, инвестиции </span><span class="CharOverride-4">в капитал или экспортное финансирование. Все три страны поощряют экспорт </span><span class="CharOverride-4">нефтепродуктов отсутствием или нулевой ставкой НДС, без российской практики уплаты </span><span class="CharOverride-4">и возмещения. Автор пришел к выводу, что российский нефтяной налоговый </span><span class="CharOverride-4">маневр в целом соответствует практике трех стран, а акцизы в </span><span class="CharOverride-4">России вполне могут быть вдвое выше их уровня 2018 г. </span><span class="CharOverride-4">В условиях значительного налогового бремени и перепроизводства нефтепродуктов эти страны </span><span class="CharOverride-4">вынуждены изобретать санкционные меры поддержки своей нефтяной промышленности.</span>

The homelessness of adult education: Some lessons from the folk development colleges of Tanzania

This paper re-examines the position of the Tanzanian Folk Development Colleges, a national network of adult education institutions, at a time when their long-term financial assistance by the Swedish International Development Agency has come to an end and they are being transferred from the Tanzanian Government Ministry of Community Development to the Vocational Training Department in the Ministry of Education. Two key questions are whether, under the vocational training wing of the Ministry of Education, they can continue to implement a liberal adult education programme, flexible ways of working, and a commitment to social transformation, using their sectorwide networks and links with international NGO adult education movements such as the Folk High Schools of Sweden, which have made them centres for a number of nation-wide innovations; and secondly, where they can best be located within governmental administrative and budgetary regimes.

Aspectos relevantes del régimen presupuestal de las empresas de servicios públicos oficiales y mixtas

Para efectos presupuestales, las empresas de servicios públicos oficiales y mixtas tienen un tratamiento diferencial frente al común de las entidades estatales, a causa del especial objeto social que explotan y porque se encuentran inmersas por regla general en mercados competitivos que obligan a la adopción de un esquema dúctil sobre el manejo financiero. Este artículo pretende adentrarse en el estudio de las particularidades que regulan el régimen presupuestal de este tipo de entidades, resaltando sus aspectos más relevantes a la luz de la normativa vigente en materia fiscal.

The social construction, challenge and transformation of a budgetary regime: The endogenization of welfare regulation by institutional entrepreneurs

Our historically-informed field study focuses upon the socio-political processes by which heterogeneous budgeting compromises are reached by a variety of contending parties in seeking and resisting fundamental change, as well as the consequences of those compromises within the State of Wisconsin’s transformative Welfare Works (W-2) Program. Despite the continuing political rhetoric of comprehensive changes in the manner in which budgets are formulated, and, more broadly, the welfare system through adoption of a “market-based delivery system” and “performance-based contracts,” we find that the adopted and transformed regulation and budgeting regime facilitated more incremental changes in welfare delivery. Our field observations identify the manner in which budgeting facilitated this shift from a comprehensive to incremental strategy in terms of: (1) the malleable nature of budgeting, which provided the needed organizational flexibility to shift resources from one application to another in an ostensibly rational manner, thereby ensuring the legitimacy of the emerging organizational arrangements and related dramatic budget cuts under W-2; and (2) the active role played by institutional entrepreneurs in the construction, challenge and deployment of budgets in shaping, and thereby endogenizing welfare reform regulations at both the federal and state level. Refining our theoretical line of reasoning, field observations suggest that W-2 and the social context to which it was applied were mutually endogenous rather than fully endogenous, and that the principal actors implicated in the change process may be more aptly described as cultural entrepreneurs rather than institutional entrepreneurs; they also suggest that the forms endogenization and entrepreneurship take are reciprocally interdependent such that the manner in which each plays out conditions the other. Implications are explored.

Are the Effects of Fiscal Changes Different in Times of Crisis and Non-Crisis? The French Case

This paper shows that the impact of changes in budgetary variables on major macroeconomic variables varies in sign and magnitude in times of crisis and non-crisis in France. We find that these nonlinearities are both frequent (as they exist on all behaviors analyzed: real GDP, private consumption, business investment and private employment) and significant. For this, we estimate time-varying probability Markov-switching models (TVPMS) in order to take into account two budgetary regimes, on the one side periods of severe recessions or depressions (crises), and, on the other side normal periods (expansions or moderate recessions). These two regimes are identified endogenously, so that we do not need to preliminary separate episodes of huge contractions and expansions of the business cycle. Further, we are able to identify the variables influencing the probability of a switch between regimes. Searching for nonlinear fiscal impacts in the form of regime-switching effects, we assume temporary variations in the budgetary variables, both on the revenue side (taxes on consumption, on firm's profit, lump sum transfers) and on the expenditure side (traditional public boosts of aggregate demand, transfers, and subsidies). Our results show that if one considers the aggregate GDP, public expenditure has a stronger impact during crisis and the expenditure multiplier is greater than the tax multiplier. Also, when households are sensitive to the unemployment situation, tax cuts do not increase consumption spending, while transfers are playing a significant role. On the firms side, our results show that direct taxes changes induce a (stimulus) effect in the investment rate only during non-crisis periods. A rise in subsidies has a negative influence during crises. Finally, the estimates suggest that employment policies should be asymmetric: fiscal measures aiming at reducing unit labor costs could be efficient in good times, while an increase in public employment is preferable during crisis.

Are the Effects of Fiscal Changes Different in Times of Crisis and Non-Crisis? The French Case

This paper shows that the impact of changes in budgetary variables on major macroeconomic variables varies in sign and magnitude in times of crisis and non-crisis in France. We find that these nonlinearities are both frequent (as they exist on all behaviors analyzed: real GDP, private consumption, business investment and private employment) and significant. For this, we estimate time-varying probability Markov-switching models (TVPMS) in order to take into account two budgetary regimes, on the one side periods of severe recessions or depressions (crises), and, on the other side normal periods (expansions or moderate recessions). These two regimes are identified endogenously, so that we do not need to preliminary separate episodes of huge contractions and expansions of the business cycle. Further, we are able to identify the variables influencing the probability of a switch between regimes. Searching for nonlinear fiscal impacts in the form of regime-switching effects, we assume temporary variations in the budgetary variables, both on the revenue side (taxes on consumption, on firm's profit, lump sum transfers) and on the expenditure side (traditional public boosts of aggregate demand, transfers, and subsidies). Our results show that if one considers the aggregate GDP, public expenditure has a stronger impact during crisis and the expenditure multiplier is greater than the tax multiplier. Also, when households are sensitive to the unemployment situation, tax cuts do not increase consumption spending, while transfers are playing a significant role. On the firms side, our results show that direct taxes changes induce a (stimulus) effect in the investment rate only during non-crisis periods. A rise in subsidies has a negative influence during crises. Finally, the estimates suggest that employment policies should be asymmetric: fiscal measures aiming at reducing unit labor costs could be efficient in good times, while an increase in public employment is preferable during crisis.

Colonial Legacies: Economic and Social Development in East and Southeast Asia

DOI: 10.1355/ae25-2h Colonial Legacies: Economic and Social Development in East and Southeast By Anne E. Booth. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007. Pp. 241. Taiwan and South Korea, both former Japanese colonies, managed have a faster economic growth from 1960 onward relative former European or American colonies in East and Southeast There is an argument that places high importance on the colonial past of these two countries as a determinant of their economic performance, contrary the popular belief that emphasizes the economic policies adopted in the post independence era. As the author states in the book, the aim of this book is to place the debate concerning Japanese colonialism in a wider perspective through an examination of the record of other colonial regimes in East and Southeast Asia. The author also writes that book attempts a comparative study of the economic and social development of colonial territories in East and Southeast Asia in the first four decades of the twentieth century and the consequence of that development the transition independence after The book manages fulfill these objectives. By providing detailed descriptions and comprehensive data throughout the book, the author gives us not just a glimpse of what was happening, in terms of economic and social development, but rather tells a complete story of what was really going on. Although the colonial empires of Japan and America in East and Southeast Asia was short lived than that of the European empire, but in many parts of the region, effective colonial administrative systems were only established in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. For this reason the comparative study presented in the book is based only on economic and social development after 1900. The book starts with a review of economic development of European colonies (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, and French Indochina), an American colony (Philippines), Japanese colonies (Taiwan and Korea) and Thailand, which was never colonized, during the period 1900-40. It examines main economic indicators such as population growth, growth in national output and income, growth of agricultural output, and growth of non-agricultural activities. This book further tells us: there is no strong evidence of differences between Japanese colonies and European or American colonies in terms of main economic indicators during 1900-40 and that might explain the differences in economic growth of former Japanese colonies after 1960 relative other colonies. This confirms the popular belief that in post-independence, economic policies were the main determinant of economic growth. The remainder of the book explores the economic indicators in more detail and describes relevant social developments resulting from policies that were implemented during 1900^45. It discusses the agricultural expansion of East and Southeast Asian colonies with respect population growth and access land, colonial government economic policies (with detailed analysis of taxation, budgetary regime, international trade and exchange rate), growth and diversification of the market economy, changes in living standards and human development, and the economic and social impacts of Japanese occupation of East and Southeast Asian Colonies from 1942 1945. Analysis of these economic and social conditions reveals a great deal of variations within colonies regarding their policies and social/economic outcomes of these policies, thus making it difficult determine the source of divergence in economic performance in the coming decades. The last part of the book gives us a review of possible sources of divergence that arises among former colonies after they become independent. As we discover from reading the review, there are a few factors that might explain the divergence of the post-war economic conditions of the former colonies. …

Budgetary reforms in two city states: impact on the central budget agency in Hong Kong and Singapore

This article compares budgetary reforms in Singapore and Hong Kong. Despite similar reform measures being undertaken in line with the global reform trends under new public management, it is found that such reforms per se have not fundamentally altered the institutional configuration of the respective budgetary regimes. While greater financial autonomy and flexibility have been given to departments and ministries, resulting in the central budget agency (CBA) surrendering micro-budgetary control, the latter continues to play a strategic macro-budgetary role at the governmental level. Neither have budgetary relationships moved towards control by performance as implied by the ‘budgeting for results’ objective. Despite their commonalities, Hong Kong has lately displayed a weaker CBA than Singapore, largely due to extra-budgetary factors rooted in their different governance and institutional contexts.

Endogenous growth, welfare and budgetary regimes

Within an optimizing endogenous growth model with productive public capital and government debt, we derive and characterize on the balanced growth path a set of welfare-maximizing fiscal rules under different budgetary regimes. It is shown that optimal fiscal policy depends on the specific budgetary stance considered.

Debt, Growth and Budgetary Regimes

AbstractWithin the Barro (1990) model of productive public services, but with the inclusion of public debt, we derive and characterize on the balanced growth path, a set of welfare‐maximizing fiscal rules under two budgetary regimes – one with only the standard dynamic government budget constraint, and the other involving the golden rule of public finance. We demonstrate analytically that the optimal fiscal policy differs in the two budgetary regimes considered. We also analyse two cases within the second regime: one, where the ratio of current spending to tax revenues is parametrically given, and another, where this ratio is optimally chosen by the government.

The Impact of Traditional Budgeting Systems on the Effectiveness of Performance‐Based Budgeting: A Different Viewpoint on Recent Findings

This article expands on recent research into performance‐based budgeting (PBB) initiatives in the states. It seeks to explain survey findings showing that, while most states are implementing PBB reforms, few show any evidence of direct behavioral changes resulting from such reforms—either in terms of the development of, or response to, new performance‐based incentives, or allocations that are linked to performance. The explanation offered is that PBB approaches are implemented in addition to traditional approaches, resulting in the traditional approaches dominating PBB. In order to influence behavior, PBB reforms should be implemented as replacements of, not additions to, pre‐existing budgetary regimes.

Endogenous growth, government debt and budgetary regimes

In this paper we analyze an endogenous growth model, in which sustained per capita growth results from investment in public capital and the government is allowed to borrow from the capital market. As to the government behavior we do not suppose that governments optimize but instead stick to some well-defined budgetary regimes. The impact of a deficit financed increase in productive government spending is analyzed. It is shown that the growth effect of this fiscal policy crucially depends on the budgetary regime in use. In particular, a more strict budgetary regime, that is, an economy where the public deficit is primarily used for public investment, does not necessarily imply a lower growth rate. Simulations demonstrate that the growth maximizing income tax rate is about in the range of the elasticity of output with respect to public capital.

Equity in the allocation of health care resources.

This paper examines some of the issues that arise when seeking to tackle health inequalities in a context of limited health care resources. Increasingly, central agencies are using devolved budgets for health care providers as a central instrument of expenditure control. Equity objectives play an important role in the resource allocation methods used to determine such budgets. Yet, unless integrated into a proper system of risk management, the use of budgets can lead to serious inequity. The paper discusses the potential contributions of different disciplines to promoting equity within a health care budgetary regime.

DISCUSSION: Cost Predictions of Facilities

One method the authors use to predict facility operating costs is a statistical regression of historical costs against time. The costs considered are either utility costs or maintenance and repair costs. Clearly, what the authors are attempting to estimate is the cost of operating and maintaining a facility in good working condition. However, the estimated slope coefficient is based on accounting data and represents the average rate of change, the trendline, of actual spending over time. Only in a budgetary regime of fully funding facility requirements would the model used by the authors provide accurate predictions. By necessity, utilities tend to be fully funded; but needed maintenance and repair projects can be deferred indefinitely into the future. In an era of shrinking university and government budgets, the assumption of fully funding maintenance and repair projects becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. Under these circumstances, the discussers feel that a widely accepted, macro-financial model that relates next year's facility condition to this year's facility condition and expected funding provides a better theoretical basis for statistical estimates. This model is based on the notion that at a given point in time, the cost of needed maintenance and repair projects-deficiencies identified by a surveyor inspection-is a measure of facility condition. This model can be expressed by the following recursive equation: