IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/phd/dpaper/dp_2010-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Barangays Really Matter in Local Services Delivery? Some Issues and Policy Options

Author

Listed:
  • Lavado, Rouselle F.
  • Layug, Allan S.
  • Pantig, Ida Marie T.
  • Bolong, Leilani E.

Abstract

This paper, which is borne out of the need to address scarcity of evidence-based studies on barangay financing, analyzes and evaluates key issues on financing of devolved functions at the barangay level, with particular focus on fund utilization and program allocation, and proposes some policy options addressing the issues. Its key findings include: (i) there is a mismatch between financial capabilities and devolved functions owing to limited funds being spent mostly on personal services, with little money left to finance these functions; (ii) different priorities of barangays mean different utilization of their Barangay Development Fund (BDF), with some of them failing to spend on important basic services such as education and health, as well as on economic development sector; (iii) like other barangays, those in the study areas in Agusan del Sur and Dumaguete City are found to be highly IRA-dependent, with IRA comprising 85 to 97 percent of total income; (iv) barangays are not addressing the misalignment of revenue and expenditure assignment, as well as the counter-equalizing and disincentive effects of IRA, by not raising enough own-source revenues in their localities and optimizing their use of corporate powers (as evidenced by zero percentage on borrowings, for example). As a policy intervention strategy to help barangays financially and eventually matter in local service delivery, this paper proposes three major options, namely: (i) giving the barangays the option of allowing the higher LGUs to deliver the development-enhancing services such as education and health that they themselves cannot deliver effectively and sustainably; (ii) making a paradigm shift in understanding and practicing barangay economic development by spending their BDF mostly on economic-enhancing activities aimed at increasing their coffers which would eventually enable them to fund other sectoral responsibilities; and (iii) giving incentives to barangays that excel in their own-source revenue performance and creative use of corporate powers.

Suggested Citation

  • Lavado, Rouselle F. & Layug, Allan S. & Pantig, Ida Marie T. & Bolong, Leilani E., 2010. "Do Barangays Really Matter in Local Services Delivery? Some Issues and Policy Options," Discussion Papers DP 2010-03, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2010-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.pids.gov.ph/publication/discussion-papers/do-barangays-really-matter-in-local-services-delivery-some-issues-and-policy-options
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2001. "Philippines : Filipino Report Card on Pro-Poor Services," World Bank Publications - Reports 14022, The World Bank Group.
    2. Anwar Shah, 2006. "A Practitioner´s Guide to Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers," Revista de Economía y Estadística, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto de Economía y Finanzas, vol. 44(2), pages 127-186, Diciembre.
    3. Douglass C. North & John Joseph Wallis & Barry R. Weingast, 2006. "A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History," NBER Working Papers 12795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Douglas North, 2003. "The Role of Institutions in Economic Development," ECE Discussion Papers Series 2003_2, UNECE.
    5. Deepa Narayan, 2005. "Measuring Empowerment : Cross Disciplinary Perspectives," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7441, December.
    6. Arsenio M. Balisacan & Hal Hill (ed.), 2007. "The Dynamics of Regional Development," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4178.
    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. Llanto, Gilberto M., 2009. "Fiscal Decentralization and Local Finance Reforms in the Philippines," Discussion Papers DP 2009-10, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    2. Layug, Allan S., 2009. "Triangulation Framework for Local Service Delivery," Discussion Papers DP 2009-37, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    3. Magnoli Bocchi, Alessandro, 2008. "Rising growth, declining investment : the puzzle of the Philippines," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4472, The World Bank.
    4. Joseph J. Capuno & Maria Melody S. Garcia, 2008. "Can information about local government performance induce civic participation? Evidence from the Philippines," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 200808, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    5. Angela Ambrosino & Magda Fontana & Anna Azzurra Gigante, 2018. "Shifting Boundaries In Economics: The Institutional Cognitive Strand And The Future Of Institutional Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 767-791, July.
    6. Joseph J. Capuno & Maria Melody S. Garcia, 2009. "What difference can performance ratings make? Difference-in-difference estimates of impact on local government responsiveness in the Philippines," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 200908, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    7. Yefimov, Vladimir, 2009. "Comparative historical institutional analysis of German, English and American economics," MPRA Paper 48173, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Evans, Lewis & Meade, Richard, 2005. "The Role and Significance of Cooperatives in New Zealand Agriculture, A Comparative Institutional Analysis," Working Paper Series 3847, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    9. Jeni Klugman & Francisco Rodríguez & Hyung-Jin Choi, 2011. "The HDI 2010: new controversies, old critiques," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(2), pages 249-288, June.
    10. Marcel Fafchamps & Julien Labonne, 2017. "Do Politicians’ Relatives Get Better Jobs? Evidence from Municipal Elections," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 268-300.
    11. Krassimira Naydenova, 2018. "Built-In Problems in the New European Regulations for the Bulgarian Capital Market," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 5, pages 106-134.
    12. Sabina Alkire, 2007. "The Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data: Introduction to the Special Issue," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(4), pages 347-359.
    13. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Alkire, Sabina & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Peterman, Amber & Quisumbing, Agnes & Seymour, Greg & Vaz, Ana, 2013. "The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 71-91.
    15. repec:mje:mjejnl:v:12:y:2017:i:2:p:25-70 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Will, Matthias Georg & Hielscher, Stefan, 2013. "How do companies invest in corporate social responsibility? An ordonomic contribution for empirical CSR research," Discussion Papers 2013-3, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    17. Joseph J. Capuno, 2013. "Fiscal transfers and gerrymandering under decentralization in the Philippines," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 201304, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    18. Dieter Bögenhold, 2008. "Economics, Sociology, History: Notes on Their Loss of Unity, Their Need for Re-integration and the Current Relevance of the Controversy between Carl Menger and Gustav Schmoller," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 85-101, January.
    19. Wim Naudé, 2007. "Peace, Prosperity, and Pro-Growth Entrepreneurship," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2007-02, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Hal Hill & Budy Resosudarmo & Yogi Vidyattama, 2008. "Indonesia'S Changing Economic Geography," Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 407-435.
    21. Angela Milena Rojas, 2008. "Deuda pública interna, patrón metálico y guerras civiles: interconexiones institucionales, la Colombia del siglo XIX," Revista Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, CIE, April.
    22. Burchardt, Tania & Evans, Martin & Holder, Holly, 2013. "Public policy and inequalities of choice and autonomy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51267, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Local Government Units (LGUs); Philippines; local revenue; local government unit expenditures; devolution; decentralization; local government code; decentralization capability; local governance; decentralization and service delivery; institutional design for decentralization; local development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:phd:dpaper:dp_2010-03. 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: Aniceto Orbeta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/pidgvph.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.