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In the Philippines' highly decentralized political system, smooth functioning of inter-governmental relations is key to effective service delivery and good governance overall. Although considered a milestone, the 1991 Local Government Code, the Philippines' basic legislation governing inter-governmental relations, contains provisions that thwart vertical and horizontal resource equalization among local government units, and contributes to mismatch between expenditure assignments and the fiscal capacities of the local government units. Numerous technical reports have called for adjustments to the existing revenue and expenditure assignments, yet no tangible progress has been made. This paper assesses the prospects of legislative reforms on the revenue side of the decentralization framework. Using a variety of approaches ranging from a historical analysis to institutional analysis of the legislative dynamics in the Philippine congress, it assesses the prospects of a major overhaul of the Local Government Code and concludes that a significant reform is highly unlikely under the conditions prevailing in the late 2010s. By implication, any effort to improve the Philippines' inter-governmental framework will have to settle for sub-optimal incremental measures within the inefficient revenue assignment arrangement.

Debt Markets --- Expenditure assignments --- Inter-governmental relations --- Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Finance Management --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Municipal Financial Management --- Parliamentary Government --- Political system --- Poverty Reduction --- Resource equalization --- Service delivery --- Subnational Economic Development

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This paper provides an overview of recent Chinese reforms to introduce a modern system of fiscal federalism that balances the need for central macroeconomic control with the economic advantages of decentralized government. Following a discussion of the rationale for decentralization, the paper describes the main structural and economic developments in China in this area, including their impact on economic stabilization. The key measures in the 1994 fiscal reforms as well as reform initiatives needed in the future are also discussed.

Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue --- State and Local Budget and Expenditures --- Intergovernmental Relations --- Federalism --- Secession --- Fiscal Policy --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Expenditure --- Fiscal policy --- Fiscal federalism --- Expenditure assignments --- Revenue assignments --- Expenditures, Public --- China, People's Republic of

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The assignment of revenues in most developing and transitional countries to the central government has arguably facilitated irresponsible behavior by some subnational governments. One way to relieve this problem is to strengthen subnational tax regimes. The paper proposes two approaches to accomplish such strengthening in developing countries. The first—most applicable to large countries with important regional governments—is to establish subnational value-added taxes (VATs); the second is to replace the various unsatisfactory state and local taxes imposed on business by a low-rate value-added tax levied on the basis of income (production, origin) rather than consumption (destination).

Macroeconomics --- Taxation --- Corporate Taxation --- State and Local Government --- Intergovernmental Relations: General --- Business Taxes and Subsidies --- Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue: General --- Fiscal Policy --- Public finance & taxation --- Corporate & business tax --- Subnational tax --- Value-added tax --- Revenue assignments --- Expenditure assignments --- Corporate income tax --- Taxes --- Fiscal policy --- Spendings tax --- Corporations --- Brazil