Bulletin n. 2-3/2012
October 2012-February 2013
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Gomes, Sandra
    Fiscal Powers to Subnational Governments: Reassessing the Concept of Fiscal Autonomy
    in Regional and Federal Studies , volume 22 n.4 ,  2012 ,  387-406
    Fiscal autonomy is understood as a type of funding arrangement that awards subnational governments more discretion over the allocation of funds and, therefore, the choice of public policies. From this concept a series of expected (positive and negative) effects on local governance is predicted by theories. However, the adopted assumption that once local governments have autonomous sources of revenue, they will necessarily have autonomy on the spending-side is false and leads to misleading conclusions. The article presents an empirical application of subnational revenue arrangements in the case of Brazil operationalized in two different ways: one following current methodology and another taking into account rules that limit decision-making autonomy to spend. Results are strikingly different and, it is argued, are not a simple matter of classification but indeed of theoretical validity.
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