V. Working Group on Public Finance and Public Financial Management
WG Programme Coordinators:
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
Professor of Public Finance and Management
The WG on Public Finance and
Public Finance Management announces two research tracks for the 2016
conference:
(1) Tax assignment across levels of government and
(2)
"Better” governmental spending as a reaction to the crisis.
Because the
research protocols clearly proved to be a useful tool in previous years in the
improvement of research and preparation of papers, we provide them again.
For both tracks we provide
the recommended structure both for the abstract proposal 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 in the
region.
Applications on other
related topics are welcome. The abstract in such a case should follow the recommended
structure as indicated for both tracks.
Track 1: Tax assignment
across levels of government
The aim of this track is to
answer these and similar questions related to tax assignment, local taxation
and its actual usage by local governments. The papers in this research track
should focus either on the development of the tax assignment over the last two
decades or on the impact of the current tax assignment on the legal and real
fiscal autonomy of local government.
Possible research questions:
How did tax assignment
change over the last two decades?
What did these changes mean
from the point of view of local governments?
Do local governments have
more or less fiscal autonomy now than in the early 1990s?
Do local governments really
use this autonomy?
Recommended structure of the
abstract proposal:
• The research objective or the research question (e.g. what
were the major changes in the tax assignment? How did the volume and structure
of tax revenues change? How did municipalities respond to the tax assignment
change? Do municipalities use all their permitted autonomy? How many
municipalities impose taxes at the maximum level allowed by the law? What are
the factors influencing the decision to increase/decrease tax rates?).
• Sample of local governments analysed and methods (e.g.(1)
10 municipalities in XYZ country and multiple case-study approach using published
data and interviews, or (2) 200 biggest municipalities, data provided by
Ministry of Finance, multiple regression).
Recommended structure of the
paper:
• Short literature review of the phenomena studied, based on
both local and international literature.
• Brief description of the tax assignment 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.
Recommended structure of the
abstract proposal:
• The research objective or the research question.
• Methodology.
• Expected findings.
Recommended structure of the
paper:
• Introducing the case analysed, importance, goals.
• Short literature review of the phenomena studied, based on
both local and international literature.
• Methodology.
• Analysis – all relevant qualitative and quantitative
research methods can be used.
• Summary, discussion, policy implications.