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The aim of this paper is to analyze how limits in revenue and spending autonomy of sub-sovereign governments influence their decisions. Revenue and spending autonomy indicators for Polish towns were established and used in analysis on school education expenditures during 2003-2016. The influence of limits on revenue autonomy on municipal spending has been extensively addressed in both theoretical and empirical literature. However, studies related to spending autonomy are rare. The analysis presented in this paper suggests that when limits exist in spending autonomy, more decentralized tasks are crowded out by regulated obligations. That is why the spending autonomy analysis is important to evaluate the equity between local units and the adequacy of local revenues to decentralized expenditures. The basic principle of local finance is that there should be an adequate relationship between the financial resources available to a local authority and the tasks it performs. However, in practice, the assessment of whether this has been achieved is very difficult. Often, only problems with the solvency of local governments indicate that we are dealing with a poorly constructed system of local finances. The expenditure autonomy indicator proposed in this article is a tool that provides a way to indicate problems with the adequacy of revenues before such an extreme situation occurs.

Two major questions to which public policy analysis has been addressed concern the relative influence of economic and political factors upon governmental policy, and the degree of linkage between government spending and the policy outcomes produced by these outlays. These questions are examined with data on health care policy in Yugoslav local governments (communes). A causal model is constructed to estimate the relationships among five conceptual stages in the policy process: (1) socioeconomic context (regional culture and economic structure), (2) political context (liberalism and bureaucratism), (3) government spending level (health spending per capita), (4) policy outputs (hospital beds and doctors per capita), and (5) policy outcomes (percentage of births and deaths with medical attention, and infant mortality rate). The causal model shows that political determinants of policy are much more important than economic ones among Yugoslav communes. Bureaucratization and political liberalism are clearly much more important than development context in determining spending levels; and bureaucratization has by far the greatest impact on health outputs. Popular political culture, rather than economic context, furthermore, emerges as the predominant influence on health outcomes. These causal patterns also indicate the existence of substantial discontinuities among the three stages of the policy process because health spending has only a marginal influence on outputs and because outputs and outcomes are only slightly related at best. What Sharkansky calls the previous investment necessary to create bureaucratic complexes explains the first discontinuity, whereas the second results from different cultural mores about 'health behavior' and about interactions with governmental authorities and with the modern world in general.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER ONE: Understanding Taxes -- The Progressive Tax -- The Proportional Tax -- The Regressive Tax -- Which System Is Best? -- The Argument for Lower Taxes -- The Argument for Higher Taxes -- CHAPTER TWO: What is Government Spending? -- Understanding Debt -- Impact on Future Generations -- Advantages -- The Bank Bailouts -- CHAPTER THREE: Budgeting -- Personal Budget Versus the Federal Budget -- CHAPTER FOUR: Fiscal Policy -- Problems with Fiscal Policy -- What Can We Do? -- Fiscal Discipline -- A Challenge -- Using Technology to Keep an Eye on Spending -- CHAPTER FIVE: How You Can Help -- Encourage Voting -- Raise Your Voice -- What You Can Do -- Using Social Media for Change -- GLOSSARY -- FOR MORE INFORMATION -- Web Sites -- FOR FURTHER READING -- INDEX -- About the Authors -- Photo Credits

July 23, 1980 ; At head of title: 96th Congress, 2d session. Committee print ; Includes bibliographical references ; Mode of access: Internet.

Reuse of record except for individual research requires license from Congressional Information Service, Inc. ; July 23, 1980. ; At head of title: 96th Congress, 2d session. Committee print. ; CIS Microfiche Accession Numbers: CIS 80 S402-14 ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Microfiche. ; Mode of access: Internet.

In June the Coalition Government produced a budget that aimed to reduce the government deficit quickly. The plan was based mainly on cuts in current expenditure and reductions in transfers to individuals. There are four possible reasons for reducing the deficit, and all have been used to justify the policy. The first reason might be that the cost of borrowing is currently too high, and the second could be that if deficits persist the markets could lose confidence and the cost of borrowing would rise. The third reason might be that we have to reduce the debt stock in order that we prepare for the next crisis, whilst the fourth, and perhaps most persuasive in the long run, is that it is unfair to borrow so much and therefore reduce the consumption of future generations. If either of the first two had merit there would be a case for swift consolidation, whilst if the third or fourth predominate, we should not be in any rush to act until output is nearer full capacity.

Welfare ranking of policy instruments is addressed in a two-sector Ramsey model with monopoly pricing in one sector as the only distortion. When government spending is restricted, i.e. when a government is unable or unwilling to finance the required costs for implementing the optimum policy, subsidies that directly affect investment incentives may generate higher welfare effects than the direct instrument, which is a production subsidy. The driving mechanism is that an investment subsidy may be more cost effective than the direct instrument; and that the relative welfare gain from cost effectiveness can exceed the welfare loss from introducing new distortions. Moreover, it is found that the investment subsidy is gradually phased out of the welfare maximizing policy, which may be a policy combining the two subsidies, when the level of government spending is increased.

Reuse of record except for individual research requires license from Congressional Information Service, Inc. ; CIS Microfiche Accession Numbers: CIS 77 S401-1 ; Microfiche. ; Mode of access: Internet.

This paper studies the relationship between party discipline and discretionary spending with theory and data. We propose a theoretical model in which a politician faces a conflict between her constituents' interests and the party line. Party loyalty is electorally costly for the politician and is therefore rewarded by the party leader with greater amounts of discretionary spending allocated to the politician's constituency. This effect is greater the more intense the conflict between the voters' and the party's interests. Using data on party discipline in the U.S. House of Representatives and federal payments to congressional districts between 1986 and 2010, we provide evidence that increases in legislators' party discipline raise the amounts of discretionary spending their districts receive. The rewards for discipline are larger the greater the gap between the constituents' and party's preferences (i.e., in conservative-leaning districts represented by Democrats or liberal-leaning districts represented by Republicans).

Running title: ONDCP paper. ; "October 1993." ; Shipping list no.: 93-622-P. ; Mode of access: Internet.