Search results

The first paper introduces a new dataset on the stock and structure of domestic debt in 36 Low-Income Countries over the period 1971-2011. We characterize the recent trends regarding LICs domestic public debt and explore the relevance of different arguments put forward on the benefits and costs of government borrowing in local public debt markets. The main stylized fact emerging from the data is the increase in domestic government debt since 1996. We also observe that poor countries have been able to increase the share of long-term instruments over time and that the maturity lengthening went together with a decrease in borrowing costs. However, the concentration of the investor base, mainly dominated by commercial banks and the Central Bank, may crowd out lending to the private sector.

Three hundred and fifty municipalities across five continents participated in the Urban Climate Change Governance Survey (UCGS). Conducted at MIT in partnership with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the UCGS provides a first of its kind look at the governance networks that municipalities are creating to address climate change. Drawing from these results, this paper analyses the institutional governance structures that surround local government work on climate change adaptation. Results show an integration of adaptation and mitigation planning, and a mainstreaming of adaptation planning into other long-range and sectoral plans. Seventy-three percent of respondents stated that their local government's are engaging with both adaptation and mitigation, and 75% are integrating adaptation into long-range or sectoral plans. However, many critical municipal agencies – including those responsible for water, waste water, health, and building codes – remain on the margins of urban adaptation efforts. Internal institutional networks of governance are inextricably linked to efforts to address a problem like adaptation, which does not fit neatly into individual institutional silos. The results of the UCGS show where these networks have so far been made, how they have been created, and which local government actors have yet to be effectively engaged.

Local Government finance is of immense importance for a state and for the government functions of rendering services to the citizens. Local finances reflect the fiscal independence of municipalities and the financial capacity to carry out its responsibilities under the legal provisions of the central government. It is therefore very important to monitor the development of local finance in transition countries and in transferring experiences from countries with higher fiscal decentralization to countries which are pre-accesion candidates to EU. Countries with higher fiscal decentralization are more acceptable bycountries that are recently new members of the European Union under similar region. In this study, a parallel overview of the local finances of new member country in the EU, Slovenia and pre-accesion candidate country to the EU i.e. Macedonia, was taken