Suchergebnisse

The existence of spatial strategic interaction between neighbouring local governments is often referred in literature and identified in empirical applications for several countries. This interaction can occur either in expenditures or revenues of local governments. The spatial interaction in local government expenditure finds support on three theoretical explanations: spillover effects, Tiebout competition or mimicking behaviour. Identify the adequate explanation for the local government interaction is not an easy task since the reduced form of the estimated model can generate indistinguishable pattern in spatial interactions. This paper seeks to identify between those theoretical explanations what is the underlying reason for spatial interaction in public expenditures among local governments for the case of a particular sub-area of Portugal. Using differentiated model configurations and the local government expenditures of the municipalities composing the Northern Portuguese mainland, between 1998 and 2008, the paper identifies the structural model that generates the observed spatial auto-correlation in local public expenditures. Among the various theoretical reasons, only the existence of spillovers effects finds support.

A new explanation is offered for a political business cycle on local public expenditure with rational, forward-looking voters and endogenous electoral success probability. The cycle results from the incumbent's concern with her welfare in case of electoral defeat. ; N/A

The "Law of 1/n" postulates a positive relationship between the number of democratically elected representative districts & government spending. Strong support for this relationship exists in legislatures in the US (at both the state & national level) & across countries. Few studies have examined this relationship at the local level despite the fact that local governments operate under constraints similar to those faced by representative legislatures. Using a sample of GA counties, we find the number of county commissioners to be positively correlated with county government expenditures, indicating support for the Law of 1/n at the local level. 5 Tables, 24 References. Adapted from the source document.

The thesis consists of an introductory part and three self-contained papers. Paper [I] studies the determinants of the differences in expenditure on services for functionally impaired individuals among municipalities in Sweden. A spatial autoregressive model is used in order to test whether the decisions on the expenditure level in a neighboring municipality affect the municipality's own expenditure. The results show of spatial interaction among neighbors, possible due to mimicking. However, when controlling for differences among counties there is no evidence of spatial interaction. Therefore, the positive interaction first found can be interpreted either as a result of differences in the way county councils diagnose individuals or due to interaction among the neighbors in the same county. Paper [II] takes advantage of a new intergovernmental grant in two ways. First, the grant is used to study the effect on municipal spending related to the grant. Second, the grant is used to test a hypothesis of spatial interaction among municipalities due to mimicking behavior. The data used pertains to the periods before and after the introduction of the grant. A fixed-effects spatial lag model is used to study the spatial interactions among municipalities. The results show that before the grant, municipalities interact with their neighbors when setting the expenditure level, while there is no evidence of interaction in the second period. This would support the hypothesis that the grants provide information to the municipalities and the need for mimicking diminishes with the grant. Paper [III] examines whether local public expenditures on services to functionally impaired individuals crowd out other local public expenditures in Sweden. The hypothesis is tested on five different spending areas using a two-stage least squares (2SLS) fixed-effects model. While the results give no support for crowding out in the areas of social assistance, culture & leisure, and childcare & preschool, a negative relationship on spending for elderly & disabled care and on spending for education is found, suggesting that crowding out indeed occurs within the municipal sector. The negative relationships are significant both in a statistical and an economic sense.

This thesis consists of five papers, which concern expenditure decisions and economic growth within Swedish local government.Paper [1] explores the hypothesis that local fiscal shocks have short run effects on revenue and expenditure decisions made within local government. It is found that although fiscal shocks do not affect local authorities' revenue decisions, they do induce municipalities to change expenditures and financial costs along with short term loans. Local authorities are also found to respond more powerful to unfavorable fiscal shocks (deficit shocks) than to favorable fiscal shocks (surplus shocks).In Paper [2], we study the hypothesis that local (municipal) expenditures, in part, can be explained by regional (county) expenditures. We formulate and estimate a demand model for municipal services that is defined conditional on the county expenditures. The results imply a positive dependency between the provision of county and municipal services. Moreover, the results suggest that the hypothesis of weak separability between the provision of county and municipal services can be rejected. In addition, we cannot reject the hypothesis that the regional expenditures are weakly exogenous in the local expenditure equation.In Paper [3] the existence of spillover between Swedish municipalities in the provision of recreational and cultural services is analyzed. A representative .voter model is derived and the demand for recreational and cultural services is estimated using spatial SUR techniques. The results suggest a negative relationship between recreational and cultural expenditures provided by neighboring municipalities, which indicates that these services are substitutes.Paper [4] concerns the regional growth pattern in Sweden by analyzing what factors might determine the growth rate of regional average income levels and the net migration rates. Our results suggest a negative dependence between the initial average income level and the subsequent income growth, which supports the conditional convergence hypothesis. Among other things, we also find that the initial endowments of human capital have a positive effect on subsequent net migration while the initial unemployment rate is found to have a negative impact on net migration.Paper [5] complements the analysis made in Paper [4] by studying which factors determine average income growth and net migration at the local level of government. The conditional convergence hypothesis cannot be rejected. Local government investments are found to have a positive effect on the subsequent net migration while leaving the growth in mean income unaffected. This may indicate that the net migration caused by these investments does not significantly affect the proportion of skilled and unskilled labor. ; Härtill 5 delarbeten. ; digitalisering@umu

For various reasons-whether philosophical, political, humanitarian, or by institutional mandate-people are concerned for the well being of the most vulnerable groups in society: women, the poor, and the elderly. Some would even measure the value of a political system by how well it cares for the least of its members. Related to this is the orientation of government toward the public more generally and the extent that it listens and responds to its citizens. More specifically, it is the rules and norms-the institutional framework-of government through which it takes into account the preferences of people on a day-to-day basis, not just at the ballot box. "Public Expenditure Analysis" explores two themes: the orientation of government towards its more vulnerable groups and the extent to which government is responsive to its citizens. The first part of the book provides tools, methodologies, and examples of how to examine the impact of government expenditures, taxes, pension systems and other policies on women, the poor, and the elderly. The second part looks at the different ways that the government listens to citizens' voices and proposes a new institutional framework for governments that wish to implement reforms that increase responsiveness: citizen-centered government and citizen-centered budgeting.

For various reasons-whether philosophical, political, humanitarian, or by institutional mandate-people are concerned for the well being of the most vulnerable groups in society: women, the poor, and the elderly. Some would even measure the value of a political system by how well it cares for the least of its members. Related to this is the orientation of government toward the public more generally and the extent that it listens and responds to its citizens. More specifically, it is the rules and norms-the institutional framework-of government through which it takes into account the preferences

The paper analyzes local political cycle in Czech municipalities over the period between 1997 and 2013. We apply the system and the difference GMM estimators to detect electoral manipulation in current and capital expenditures in electoral and pre-electoral years. Primarily, we estimate the effects for expenditure levels but to check the robustness we re-estimate the model for spending shares. We have found that the size of municipalities matters, and unsurprisingly, small municipalities do not increase spending in such an extent as bigger municipalities, though big municipalities tend to have lower share of capital spending before elections. Leftist governments tend to attract votes by increasing current expenditures, while rightist governments increase rather capital expenditures. On the one hand, the share of votes of the mayor's party in previous elections increases pre-election capital spending, on the other hand, its winning margin works in the opposite direction. Finally, the more terms a mayor has been in office, the lower is capital spending in pre-electoral year.