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24th NISPAcee Annnual Conference /

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.

 

 

(c) NISPAcee, Generated: March 29, 2024 / 10:00