WBI Learning Resources discuss issues in economic development policy and lessons from experience in a way that can be understood by non-specialists. This is the first in a series that will look at governance and decentralisation and looks at the implications of federalism on the growth of Russia's economy. In particular it looks at the impact of fiscal decentralisation as the way intergovernmental finances are resolved influences the transition and macroeconomic stability.

This highly original book analyzes political decentralization and fiscal federalism in Canada and Germany, both traditional federal countries, and in Spain, a unitarian country engaged in the last two decades in a process of decentralization. The three key issues required for a well designed financing system are analyzed in depth herein, namely: tax assignment, equalization grants (i.e. redistribution of money from the wealthy regions or the national government to poorer regions) and the role of regional government in the administration of taxes. Fiscal Federalism and Political Decentralization will be of particular interest to academics and researchers of economics, public economics, public finance and public choice. It will also appeal to politicians and policy makers as well as organizations and agencies related to the economy and fiscal federalism.

This collection of essays by leading scholars and diplomats involved with the area examines the key political and economic issues facing Japan, Russia, and their neighbors since the end of the Cold War. The main goal is to analyze recent developments in Moscow-Tokyo bilateral relations and their growing interest in closer economic engagement, stability, and regional cooperation. The volume provides readers with an in-depth analysis of the very problems and opportunities that compelled the national leaders of Japan and Russia to drastically change the format and contents of the dialogue, to address the most critical issues not only of the moment but also for the future. The volume is a crucial resource for scholars, policy makers, and students involved with Asia-Pacific economic cooperation and Japanese and Russian foreign policy.

In the early 1990s, the countries of the former Soviet Bloc faced an urgent need to reform the systems by which they delivered broad, basic social welfare to their citizens. Inherited systems were inefficient and financially unsustainable. Linda J. Cook here explores the politics and policy of social welfare from 1990 to 2004 in the Russian Federation, Poland, Hungary, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Most of these countries, she shows, tried to institute reforms based on a liberal paradigm of reduced entitlements and subsidies, means-testing, and privatization. But these proposals provoked opposition from pro-welfare interests, and the politics of negotiating change varied substantially from one political arena to another. In Russia, for example, liberalizing reform was blocked for a decade. Only as Vladimir Putin rose to power did the country change its inherited welfare system. Cook finds that the impact of economic pressures on welfare was strongly mediated by domestic political factors, including the level of democratization and balance of pro- and anti-reform political forces. Postcommunist welfare politics throughout Russia and Eastern Europe, she shows, are marked by the large role played by bureaucratic welfare stakeholders who were left over from the communist period and, in weak states, by the development of informal processes in social sectors.

During the early 2000s the market liberalization reforms to the Russian economy, begun in the 1990s, were consolidated. But since the mid 2000s economic policy has moved into a new phase, characterized by more state intervention with less efficiency and more structural problems. Corruption, weak competitiveness, heavy dependency on energy exports, an unbalanced labour market, and unequal regional development are trends that have arisen and which, this book argues, will worsen unless the government changes direction. The book provides an in-depth analysis of the current Russian economic system, highlighting especially structural and institutional defects, and areas where political considerations are causing distortions, and puts forward proposals on how the present situation could be remedied.

This book details the context within which policy decisions and objectives for the property tax system are made in the transitional economies of Central and Eastern Europe. It shows how these policy decisions evolve as a part of the transitional reforms still in process. This book offers the chance to review the experiences of transitional countries in initiating and implementing fiscal instruments during a decade of enormous transformations. The research for the case studies, included in this book, was sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

This book addresses a variety of issues relating to intergovernmental finance and the provision and financing of local services including budgeting and financial management, the institutional framework for the conduct of intergovernmental relations, appropriate methods of service delivery in metropolitan agglomerations and remote rural areas, local government enterprises, user charges, property taxes, income and value-added taxes, natural resource taxes, and local business taxes. Throughout, the authors draw on experience both in Canada and in other decentralized countries and consider to vary.

Through a collection of unique case studies and theoretical analyses, this work examines the genesis and impact of decentralization reforms in developing and transition countries. In particular, the volume shows how decentralization affects governance and efficiency in the provision of public goods and under what conditions decentralization seems to deliver its theoretical benefits. Analyses in the book address current concerns about the interaction of decentralization with social and political structure, resource mobilization, public goods provision and corruption. This work will be invaluable to scholars of politics, development studies and regional studies.

This book reviews taxing choices to protect the local and global environment and preserve and sustain natural resources. Alternative economic instruments such as carbon taxes and tradable permits to combat global climate change are also examined. Strategies and practices for the managing and sharing of revenues from natural resources are highlighted. Also, roles of various orders of government in managing, taxing, and sharing natural resources in selected countries are documented to highlight the impact of such division of responsibilities in preserving natural resources and the environment. The susceptibility of resource revenue dependent economies to corruption and malfeasance, and the Dutch disease, is also highlighted. This book could serve as a supplementary reference book for graduate and undergraduate courses and as a sourcebook for journalists, researchers, policymakers, and government practitioners.

In this book, experts from across the globe highlight the state of knowledge in intergovernmental transfer design. The essays collected in the volume represent creative new thinking about challenging policy issues and offer useful options for policy makers. The book offers academics and practitioners a thorough, thematic assessment of unresolved issues in the design of equalization grants.