grant financing of metropolitan areas: a review of principles and practices anwar shah, swufe, china...
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Grant Financing of Metropolitan Areas: A Review
of Principles and Practices
Anwar Shah, SWUFE, China and Brookings Institution (
[email protected])WBI Webinar 28 May 2012
Metro Areas – basic characteristicsMetro Areas – basic characteristics• At the core of prosperity of nations• Great expectations critically linked to fiscal health and
thereby to fiscal regimes. e.g. St.Louis. MO • Compact areas with high population and population
densities • Varied governance structures and tiers – From uni-city to
fragmented governance • Large and dynamic tax bases but metropolitan government
access restrained. Existing bases overtaxed in OECD. Unfunded mandates
• Grant design critical for responsive, responsible, fair and accountable metropolitan governance and local economic development
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• Allocation basis among local governments: school age children (ages 6-17)
• Distribution to providers: equal per pupil to both government and private schools
• Conditions: Universal access to all, private school admissions on merit regardless of parents’ income, improvements in school achievement scores, graduation and drop out rates, no condition on spending
• Penalties: public censure, reduction of grant funds
• Incentives for cost efficiency: retention of savings
• Built-in bottom up results based accountability: competition with voice and exit options as parental choice of school determines school grant.
The Practice of Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers
An example: An Output based (performance oriented) education grant to set national minimum standards and encourage competition
and innovation and citizen empowerment
Metro services that are strong candidate for grant finance
Metro services that are strong candidate for grant finance
• Primary and secondary, education and public health
• Welfare assistance• Arterial road and regional public transit• National heritage museums and Olympic parks
Additional considerations in developing a grant strategy for metro areas
Additional considerations in developing a grant strategy for metro areas
• Autonomous public agencies for service delivery. Not relevant for grant design.
• Functional, overlapping and competing jurisdictions. Output based grants a suitable tool.
• Fragmentation of metro by single purpose jurisdictions. Revenue inadequacy relevant for grant design.
• Contracting out metropolitan services. Output based grants to assure services to the poor.
Grants and own source revenues in uni-city metro areas
Grants and own source revenues in uni-city metro areas
Grant and own source financing by horizontally coordinated or fragmented metro areas
Grant and own source financing by horizontally coordinated or fragmented metro areas
Metro dependency on central transfers by type of metro governance
Metro dependency on central transfers by type of metro governance
Metro areas with major dependency on central transfers
Metro areas with major dependency on central transfers
Examples of better practices are hard to find.
Examples of better practices are hard to find.
• One size does not fit all. Prague as the only exception.
• Grant to promote competition among local jurisdiction. Examples Albania and Russia.
• Output based transfers for school finance. Examples: Thailand, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Australia.
• Solidarity principle for inter and intra metro equalization. Examples: Denmark, Finland
• Tax rebates by origin of collection. Shanghai, Beijing
Notable Points of Departure of Practice from Principles
Notable Points of Departure of Practice from Principles
• One size does fit all approaches. No recognition of metro governance structure, responsibilities, unique role in global and national connectivity.
• Nature of metro services not considered. School financing from property taxes and input control grants in USA, UK rather than from PIT and output based grants.
• Complex criteria with lack of focus on objectives• No sunset clauses or review provisions
Departure of practice from principles (2)Departure of practice from principles (2)
• Self-financing highly constrained with only a handful of exceptions
• Tax by tax sharing and revenue sharing widely practiced.
• General purpose transfers –one size fits all approach- discriminates against metro areas.
• Spillout of benefits rarely compensated.• Project based specific purpose transfers with
input conditionality and unfunded mandates in vogue –undermine local autonomy and accountability –examples Bangkok and Jakarta
Notable points of departure of practice from principles (3)
Notable points of departure of practice from principles (3)
• Need greater tax autonomy through tax decentralization and tax base sharing
• Greater access to capital finance• Results based grant financing (output based
grants) of social and infrastructure services to encourage competition, innovation and citizen based accountability.
• Tournament based grant financing to encourage benchmarking.
• Certificate based grant financing to incentivize management reforms
Lessons from International PracticeLessons from International Practice
• Metro areas have high dependency on central transfers.
• Metro areas unfairly treated in grant design. Require separate program.
• Metro areas need greater tax autonomy and access to more productive tax bases e.g. income, sales and environmental taxes.