IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/abo/neswpt/w0001.html

Incentives to provide local public goods: fiscal federalism, Russian style

Author

Listed:
  • Ekaterina Zhuravskaya

    (Russian European Center for Economic Policy and Stockholm Institute for Transition Economics)

Abstract

Based on a unique data set on Russian city budgets, this paper shows that revenue sharing between regional and local governments provides local governments with no incentive to increase tax base or provide public goods. Any change in local government’s own revenues is almost entirely offset by changes in shared revenues. This leads to governmental over-regulation of private businesses. It is shown that fiscal incentives are a determinant of the formation of private business and the efficiency of public goods provision. The Russian federalism is compared to the Chinese federalism, where fiscal incentives reputedly are stronger in many provinces.

Suggested Citation

  • Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2000. "Incentives to provide local public goods: fiscal federalism, Russian style," Working Papers w0001, New Economic School (NES).
    • Handle: RePEc:abo:neswpt:w0001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nes.ru/files/Preprints-resh/WP1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Boycko, Maxim & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1997. "Privatizing Russia," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522284, December.
    2. Treisman, Daniel, 1996. "The Politics of Intergovernmental Transfers in Post-Soviet Russia," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 299-335, July.
    3. Mr. Vivek Arora & Mr. John Norregaard, 1997. "Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations: The Chinese System in Perspective," IMF Working Papers 1997/129, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Simon Johnson & Daniel Kaufman & Andrei Shleifer, 1997. "The Unofficial Economy in Transition," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(2), pages 159-240.
    5. Yingyi Qian & Chenggang Xu, 1993. "Why China's economic reforms differ: the M‐form hierarchy and entry/expansion of the non‐state sector," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 1(2), pages 135-170, June.
    6. Yingyi Qian & Barry R. Weingast, 1997. "Federalism as a Commitment to Reserving Market Incentives," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 83-92, Fall.
    7. John Knight & Li Shi, 1999. "Fiscal decentralization: Incentives, redistribution and reform in China," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 5-32.
    8. Shleifer, Andrei, 1997. "Government in transition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 385-410, April.
    9. Jin, Hehui & Qian, Yingyi & Weingast, Barry R., 2005. "Regional decentralization and fiscal incentives: Federalism, Chinese style," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(9-10), pages 1719-1742, September.
    10. Yingyi Qian & Barry R. Weingast, 1996. "China's transition to markets: market-preserving federalism, chinese style," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 149-185.
    11. Qian, Yingyi & Xu, Cheng-Gang, 1993. "Why China's economic reforms differ: the m-form hierarchy and entry/expansion of the non-state sector," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3755, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olivier Blanchard & Andrei Shleifer, 2001. "Federalism With and Without Political Centralization: China Versus Russia," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(4), pages 1-8.
    2. Deng, Jiapin, 2025. "Deleveraging backed by fiscal support: The monetary–fiscal policy mix during the deleveraging campaign in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    3. Yingyi Qian, 1999. "The Institutional Foundations of China's Market Transition," Working Papers 99011, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    4. Barbara Krug & Alexander Libman, 2015. "Commitment to local autonomy in non-democracies: Russia and China compared," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 221-245, June.
    5. Wilson, Ross, 2015. "Does Governance Cause Growth? Evidence from China," Working Papers 2015:14, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    6. Liangliang Liu, 2021. "Fiscal decentralization and the imbalance between consumption and investment in China," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(1), pages 1-17, February.
    7. Wilson, Ross, 2016. "Does Governance Cause Growth? Evidence from China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 138-151.
    8. Longjin Chen & Jian Huang & Jianjun Li, 2017. "Fiscal Decentralization, Satisfaction with Social Services, and Inequality Under the Hukou System," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 377-394, May.
    9. Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina & Yakovlev, Evgeny, 2007. "Deregulation of Business," CEPR Discussion Papers 6610, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Chen, Kang, 2004. "Fiscal centralization and the form of corruption in China," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 1001-1009, November.
    11. Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2007. "Whither Russia? A Review of Andrei Shleifer's A Normal Country," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(1), pages 127-146, March.
    12. Qichun He & Meng Sun, 2018. "Does Fiscal Decentralization Increase the Investment Rate? Evidence from Chinese Panel Data," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 19(1), pages 75-101, May.
    13. Elvis Cheng Xu, 2019. "Impacts of Urbanisation on Trust: Evidence from a Lab in the Field on a Natural Experiment," Artefactual Field Experiments 00676, The Field Experiments Website.
    14. An, Heng & Chen, Yanyan & Luo, Danglun & Zhang, Ting, 2016. "Political uncertainty and corporate investment: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 174-189.
    15. He, Qichun, 2015. "Fiscal decentralization and environmental pollution: Evidence from Chinese panel data," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 86-100.
    16. Liangliang Liu & Donghong Ding & Jun He, 2019. "The welfare effects of fiscal decentralization: a simple model and evidence from China," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 417-434, January.
    17. Wang, Qian & Wong, T.J. & Xia, Lijun, 2008. "State ownership, the institutional environment, and auditor choice: Evidence from China," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 112-134, September.
    18. Ma, Hongqi & Zou, Jingxian & Cai, Hongbo & Zhang, Li, 2024. "Administrative division adjustment and environmental pollution: Evidence from City-County Mergers in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    19. Jin, Hehui & Qian, Yingyi & Weingast, Barry R., 2005. "Regional decentralization and fiscal incentives: Federalism, Chinese style," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(9-10), pages 1719-1742, September.
    20. Qu, Xi & Xu, Zhiwei & Yu, Jinxiang & Zhu, Jun, 2023. "Understanding local government debt in China: A regional competition perspective," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
    • P35 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Public Finance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:abo:neswpt:w0001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vladimir Ivanyukhin The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Vladimir Ivanyukhin to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nerasru.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.