VI. Working Group on Public Finance and Public Financial Management
Lucie Sedmihradska, Department of Public Finance, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic,
E-mail: sedmih@vse.cz
Juraj Nemec, Matej Bel University Banska Bystrica, Slovakia
The WG has decided to continue to announce two research tracks, however, both of them will be specialised, accompanied by a research protocol. The research protocols appeared to be a useful tool in previous years, not only for young scholars, in the improvement of research and preparation of papers.
The WG on Public Finance and Public Finance Management announces two research tracks for the 2014 conference: (1) Local government taxation: tax autonomy versus tax competition and (2) "Better” governmental spending as a reaction to the crisis.
Track 1: Local government taxation: Tax autonomy versus tax competition
Research questions:
What kind of tax autonomy is legally granted to local governments and to what extent do they use it? Are there spatial interactions among neighbouring local governments? Do local governments engage in tax competition? Can we observe electoral impacts of the local tax policy?
And what factors influence tax competition? Is it possible to confirm the following hypotheses, taken from the existing literature on tax competition (e.g. Blöchliger and Campos, 2011) in CEE conditions?
- Tax competition is more likely when local governments collect a significant proportion of their revenues from discretionary taxes.
- Tax competition is more likely in the case of a high level of local discretion over local taxes.
- Tax competition is more likely in case of taxes with a more mobile tax base.
- Tax competition is more likely in case of territorial fragmentation (small local government units).
The aim of this track is to answer these and similar questions.
We propose a structure of both the proposed abstract and the paper in order to stimulate the authors to realize an empirical research, even in the case of a small sample and case study research design. This template allows accommodating all kinds of research questions and research methods in order to obtain, as a whole group, quite rich evidence on what is happening in the region.
Structure of the proposed abstract:
- The objective or the research question. (e.g. (1) Are municipalities which neighbour municipalities which increased the tax more likely to increase it as well? or (2) Were politicians who set the tax punished, i.e., not re-elected in the 2010 municipal council elections? Or, do municipalities use all their permitted autonomy, i.e. how many municipalities impose taxes at the maximum level allowed by the law?)
- Sample of local governments and methods (e.g.(1) 10 municipalities in XYZ county and multiple case-study approach using published data and interviews, or (2) 200 biggest municipalities, data provided by Ministry of Finance, multiple regression)
Structure of the paper:
- Short literature review of the phenomena studied, based on both local and international literature.
- Brief description of the local tax studied and its legal regulation.
- Clear description of the applied research method and data (What exactly did you do?).
- Results = answer to the research question.
- Discussion and conclusion = How do your results relate to the literature? Why are your findings important? What can be done next?
- Relevance for practitioners = What is the relevance for practitioners?
Track 2: "Better” governmental spending as a reaction to the crisis.
Most public administration and public finance experts feel that cuts and tax increases cannot help to cope with the current crisis, at least not in the long-term perspective: efficiency and effectiveness of public spending might be much more important from this point of view.
The aim of this track is to collect papers analysing all aspects connected with the "level” of efficiency and effectiveness of governmental spending in CEE, but also from a broader perspective. This means that this track provides the space for really different types of contributions, such as:
-Analysing gaps in public financial management sub-areas (budgeting, procurement, contracting, etc) and possible responses.
-Providing examples of successful changes, explaining why positive changes happen.
-Providing examples of needed, but failed or not-realised changes, explaining why the situation does not improve.
Also, for this track, we provide a suggested (but not compulsory) structure of both the proposed abstract and the paper in order to stimulate the authors to realise an empirical research even in the case of a small sample and case study research design. This template allows accommodating all kinds of research questions and research methods in order to obtain, as a whole group, quite rich evidence on what is happening.
Structure of the proposed abstract:
- The objective or the research question,
- Methodology,
- Expected findings.
Structure of the paper:
- Introducing the case analysed,
- Short literature review of the phenomena studied, based on both local and international literature,
- Methodology,
- Analysis,
- Policy implications.