IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucscec/qt3xf1752z.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Political Economy of India’s Fiscal Federal System and its Reform

Author

Listed:
  • Rao, M. Govinda
  • Singh, Nirvikar

Abstract

This article examines recent and potential reforms in India’s fiscal federal system. We summarize key federal institutions in India, including tax and expenditure assignments, and mechanisms for Center-state transfers. We discuss the institutional process by which reforms can and do take place, including the role of academics, political influences, and especially institutions such as the Finance Commission. In contrast to the past, recent commissions have played a greater role in articulating an agenda for fiscal federal reform, which then proceeds through political bargaining. This change has taken place in the context of, and been influenced by, broader economic reform in India.

Suggested Citation

  • Rao, M. Govinda & Singh, Nirvikar, 2006. "The Political Economy of India’s Fiscal Federal System and its Reform," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt3xf1752z, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt3xf1752z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3xf1752z.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. Nagaraj & A. Varoudakis & M.-A. Véganzonès, 2000. "Long-run growth trends and convergence across Indian States," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 45-70.
    2. Kaliappa Kalirajan & Ulaganathan Sankar (ed.), 2003. "Economic Reform and the Liberalisation of the Indian Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2787, December.
    3. Baron, David P. & Ferejohn, John A., 1989. "Bargaining in Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1181-1206, December.
    4. Dixit, Avinash & Londregan, John, 1998. "Fiscal federalism and redistributive politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 153-180, May.
    5. repec:ind:nipfwp:20 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. World Bank, 2004. "India : Fiscal Decentralization to Rural Governments," World Bank Publications - Reports 14674, The World Bank Group.
    7. repec:npf:wpaper:20 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sharma, Chanchal Kumar, 2021. "The political economy of India's transition to Goods and Services Tax," GIGA Working Papers 325, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    2. Pinaki Chakraborty & Shatakshi Garg, 2018. "Fiscal pressure of migration & horizontal fiscal inequality: Evidence from Indian experience," WIDER Working Paper Series 004, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Singh, Nirvikar & Srinivasan, T.N., 2006. "Federalism and economic development in India:An assessment," MPRA Paper 1273, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. K. S. Harikrishnan & Gourishankar S. Hiremath, 2023. "Asymmetric Fiscal Federalism and Public Provision of Healthcare: New Insights from India," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 17(3), pages 420-438, December.
    5. Hernandez-Trillo, Fausto, 2016. "Poverty Alleviation in Federal Systems: The Case of México," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 204-214.
    6. Parantap Basu & Ritwik Mazumder, 2021. "Regional disparity of covid-19 infections: an investigation using state-level Indian data," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 215-232, June.
    7. United Cities and Local Governments, 2011. "Local Government Finance," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14696, December.

    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. Solé-Ollé, Albert & Sorribas-Navarro, Pilar, 2008. "The effects of partisan alignment on the allocation of intergovernmental transfers. Differences-in-differences estimates for Spain," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(12), pages 2302-2319, December.
    2. Singh, Nirvikar, 2008. "Decentralization and Public Delivery of Health Care Services in India," MPRA Paper 7869, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Schmidt, Torsten, 2001. "Finanzreformen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Analyse der Veränderungen der Finanzverfassung von 1949 bis 1989," RWI Schriften, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, volume 67, number 67.
    4. Kemmerling, Achim & Stephan, Andreas, 2015. "Comparative political economy of regional transport infrastructure investment in Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 227-239.
    5. Maria Gallego, David Scoones, 2005. "The Art of Compromise," Working Papers eg0042, Wilfrid Laurier University, Department of Economics, revised 2005.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    7. Amihai Glazer & Stef Proost, 2020. "Benefits to the majority from universal service," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(2), pages 391-408, April.
    8. Landry, Joel R., 2021. "The political allocation of green pork and its implications for federal climate policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    9. Ardanaz, Martín & Leiras, Marcelo & Tommasi, Mariano, 2012. "The Politics of Federalism in Argentina: Implications for Governance and Accountability," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3977, Inter-American Development Bank.
    10. Marco Battaglini & Eleonora Patacchini & Edoardo Rainone, 2019. "Endogenous Social Connections in Legislatures," NBER Working Papers 25988, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2020. "Agenda Control And Reciprocity In Sequential Voting Decisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1813-1829, October.
    12. A. Abigail Payne, 2009. "Does Government Funding Change Behavior? An Empirical Analysis of Crowd-Out," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 23, pages 159-184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Azzimonti, Marina & Mitra, Nirvana, 2023. "Political constraints and sovereign default," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Emanuel Kohlscheen, 2008. "Debt Bailouts And Constitutions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(3), pages 480-492, July.
    15. Seok-ju Cho & John Duggan, 2015. "A folk theorem for the one-dimensional spatial bargaining model," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(4), pages 933-948, November.
    16. Breitmoser, Yves & Tan, Jonathan H.W., 2013. "Reference dependent altruism in demand bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 127-140.
    17. Shabari Paul Dey & Debasis Neogi, 2015. "Testing Sigma and Unconditional Beta Convergence of GDP for SAARC Countries: Can Inclusion of China further Consolidate the Convergence?," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 16(5), pages 845-855, October.
    18. Anesi, Vincent & Duggan, John, 2018. "Existence and indeterminacy of markovian equilibria in dynamic bargaining games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    19. Deniz Aksoy, 2010. "Who gets what, when, and how revisited: Voting and proposal powers in the allocation of the EU budget," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(2), pages 171-194, June.
    20. Olivier Compte & Philippe Jehiel, 2010. "The Coalitional Nash Bargaining Solution," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(5), pages 1593-1623, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • P35 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Public Finance
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
    • P26 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Property Rights

    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:cdl:ucscec:qt3xf1752z. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecucsus.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.