Reforming Federal Fiscal Relations in Austria

This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data

Reforming Federal Fiscal Relations in Austria

Author Info

Andrés Fuentes
Eckhard Wurzel
Andreas Wörgötter

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

This paper reviews the fiscal relations between the three levels of government in Austria and points to the scope for reforming them with a view to improving the efficiency of the public sector. Key areas of public sector activity are subject to complex relations across the three layers of government. Fragmentation of decision-making in some spending programmes, such as hospital care and social assistance benefits, needs to be overcome, concentrating financing and spending responsibilities on one government level. Strengthening co-operation between municipalities as well as amalgamations of small municipalities would allow advantage to be taken of scale economies in the provision of local government services. Stronger tax-raising powers of the municipalities and the states, reform of tax sharing rules and improved budgeting procedures would raise the ability of sub-national governments to match the supply of services to local demand patters and improve accountability to voters. This Working Paper relates to the 2005 OECD Economic Survey of Austria (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/austria)

Réformer les relations budgétaires entre la fédération et les autres niveaux d’administration
Ce document rend compte des relations budgétaires entre la fédération et les autres niveaux d’administration en Autriche et met en évidence les possibilités de les faire évoluer en vue d'améliorer l'efficience du secteur public. Les principaux domaines d’activité du secteur public font intervenir des relations budgétaires complexes entre les différents niveaux d’administration. Il faut remédier au morcellement de la prise de décision pour certains programmes de dépenses, notamment les services hospitaliers et l’aide sociale, en regroupant les compétences en matière de financement et de dépense à un seul niveau d’administration. En renforçant la coopération entre les communes et en favorisant leur fusion lorsqu’elles sont de petite taille, on pourrait tirer parti des économies d’échelle pour la fourniture des services publics locaux. En dotant les communes et les Länder de plus larges compétences fiscales, en réformant les règles de partage de l’impôt et en revoyant les procédures budgétaires, on ferait en sorte que les administrations infranationales puissent mieux adapter l’offre de services à la demande locale et aient davantage de comptes à rendre à leur électorat. Ce document de travail se rapporte à l'Étude économique de l'OCDE de l'Autriche 2005 (www.oecd.org/eco/etudes/autriche)

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

Publisher Info
Paper provided by OECD, Economics Department in its series OECD Economics Department Working Papers with number 474.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: 23 Jan 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:474-en

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 2 rue Andre Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16
Email:
Web page: http://www.oecd.org
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().

Find related papers by JEL classification:
H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2006-02-05 (All new papers)
NEP-PBE-2006-02-05 (Public Economics)

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

Erik J. LundbÃ¤ck, 2008. "Medium-Term Budgetary Frameworks - Lessons for Austria from International Experience," IMF Working Papers 08/163, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Did you know? The most prolific authors have over 700 items listed on IDEAS.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-23.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.