Steven B. Webb

Beyond the center - decentralizing the State

The study focuses on decentralization, referring to the process of returning the political, fiscal, and administrative powers, to sub-national units of government. It examines the decentralization transformation of government structures in Latin America, which, since 1983, has largely transferred power, resources, and, responsibilities, to the local level. Eight cases are reviewed, within a framework for sub-national government, revising the functions, structures, and revenues assigned, and, the strategies to synchronize the elements of reform. The macroeconomic threat is addressed through hard budget constraints, analyzing the outcomes of major decentralized states in Latin America, as well as the subtle risk, that empowered local governments may use their political power to undermine national interests, in benefit of individual constituencies. Furthermore, the accountability of authority is examined, revising what is at stake with the decentralization of education, health care, and, infrastructure, under new municipal powers. It is further suggested, that successful decentralization is dependent on consistent political culture, thus, broad sets of rules affecting political behavior are analyzed, particularly on electoral systems and political parties.

Limited Access Orders in the Developing World: A New Approach to the Problems of Development

The upper-income, advanced industrial countries of the world today all have market economies with open competition, competitive multi-party democratic political systems, and a secure government monopoly over violence. Such open access orders, however, are not the only norm and equilibrium type of society. The middle and low-income developing countries today, like all countries before about 1800, can be understood as limited access orders that maintain their equilibrium in a fundamentally different way. In limited access orders, the state does not have a secure monopoly on violence, and society organizes itself to control violence among the elite factions. A common feature of limited access orders is that political elites divide up control of the economy, each getting some share of the rents. Since outbreaks of violence reduce the rents, the elite factions have incentives to be peaceable most of the time. Adequate stability of the rents and thus of the social order requires limiting access and competition-hence a social order with a fundamentally different logic than the open access order. This paper lays out such a framework and explores some of its implications for the problems of development today.

Fiscal Management in Federal Democracies: Argentina and Brazil

In shifting to decentralized public finances, a countrys central government faces certain fiscal management problems. First, during and soon after the transition, unless it reduces pending or increases its own tax resources, the central government tends to have higher deficits as it shifts fiscal resources to sub-national governments through transfers, revenue sharing, or delegation of tax bases. Reducing spending is hard, not only because cuts are always hard, but because sub-national governments might not take on expected tasks, leaving the central government with a legal or political obligation to continue spending for certain services. Second, after decentralization, the local or state government faces popular pressure to spend more and tax less, creating the tendency to run deficits. This tendency can be a problem if sub-national governments and their creditors expect or rely on bailouts by the central government. Econometric evidence from 32 large industrial and developing countries indicates that higher sub-national spending and deficits lead to greater national deficits. The authors investigate how, and how successfully, Argentina and Brazil dealt with these problems in the 1990s. In both countries, sub-national governments account for about half of public spending and are vigorous democracies in most (especially the largest) jurisdictions. The return to democracy in the 1980s revived and strengthened long-standing federal practices while weakening macroeconomic performance, resulting in unsustainable fiscal deficits, high inflation, sometimes hyperinflation, and low or negative growth. Occasional stabilization plans failed within a few years. Then Argentina (in 1991) and Brazil (in 1994) introduced successful stabilization plans. National issues were important in preventing and then bringing about macroeconomic stabilization, but so were intergovernmental fiscal relations and the fiscal management of sub-national governments. State deficits and federal transfers were often out of control in the 1980s, contributing to national macroeconomic problems. Stabilization programs in the 1990s needed to establish control, and self-control, over sub-national spending and borrowing.

In the Shadow of Violence: Politics, Economics, and the Problems of Development

1. Limited access orders: an introduction to the conceptual framework Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, Steven B. Webb and Barry R. Weingast 2. Bangladesh: economic growth in a vulnerable LAO Mushtaq H. Khan 3. Fragile states, elites, and rents in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Kai Kaiser and Stephanie Wolters 4. Seeking the elusive developmental knife-edge: Zambia and Mozambique - a tale of two countries Brian Levy 5. Limited access orders: the Philippines Gabriella R. Montinola 6. Indias vulnerable maturity: experiences of Maharashtra and West Bengal Pallavi Roy 7. Entrenched insiders: limited access order in Mexico Alberto Diaz-Cayeros 8. From limited access to open access order in Chile, take two Patricio Navia 9. Transition from a limited access order to an open access order: the case of South Korea Jong-Sung You 10. Lessons: in the shadow of violence Douglass North, John Wallis, Steven Webb and Barry Weingast.

Tariffs, Cartels, Technology, and Growth in the German Steel Industry, 1879 to 1914

The steel industry of Wilhelminian Germany is especially known for its tariff protection; its anti-competitive collusion, and the rapid increases of its productivity and its output. This study analyzes the interdependence of these four phenomena. The tariffs and cartels were directly symbiotic in providing protection, which had substantial redistributive effects in favor of larger firms. The restriction of competition by tariffs and cartels may have contributed to the productivity advances of the German steel industry by reducing the riskiness of capital-intensive technologies. Productivity increases made a major contribution to the industrys growth.

Decentralization and fiscal management in Colombia

Colombias political geography contrasts sharply with its economy. Physical characteristics and guerilla war fragment the country geographically, yet it has a long tradition of political centrism and macroeconomic stability. Recently, with political and economic decentralization, there has been some weakening of macroeconomic performance. The authors explore institutional arrangements that have helped Colombia manage the fiscal aspects of decentralization, despite the countrys political problems. Fiscal decentralization proceeded rapidly in Colombia. Education, health, and much infrastructure provision have been decentralized to the departmentos and municipios. Decentralization has led to substantial but not overwhelming problems, both in maintaining fiscal balance nationally ( as resources are transferred of subnational levels) and in preventing unsustainable deficits by the subnational governments. The problems have arisen because central government interference prevents departments from controlling their costs and because of expectations of debt bailouts. Both are legacies of the earlier pattern of management from the center, and some recent changes - especially about subnational debt - may improve matters. Colombias traditional political process has had difficulty dealing with problems of decentralization because traditional parties are weak in internal organization and have lost de facto rule over substantial territories. The fiscal problems of subnational government have been contained, however, because subnational governments are relatively weak politically and the central government, for the time being, has been able to enforce restrictions on subnational borrowing.

Fiscal responsibility laws for subnational discipline : the Latin American experience

This paper discusses fiscal responsibility laws in Latin America, with special attention to their provisions for fiscal discipline by subnational governments. It discusses why and when such laws might be useful-to help resolve the coordination problem in getting diverse governments to avoid overusing the common national credit market and to help individual governments make a time-consistent commitment for fiscal prudence. It examines the cases of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina, as well as the case of Mexico where other types of laws and regulations aim to achieve the same objectives of solidifying incentives for fiscal discipline at all levels of government. Fiscal responsibility laws are found to be useful in some cases, although the experience is not long enough to be certain, but they are clearly not necessary in every case, nor always sufficient to assure fiscal stability.

Laws for Fiscal Responsibility for Subnational Discipline : International Experience

Fiscal responsibility laws are institutions with which multiple governments in the same economy -- national and subnational --can commit to help avoid irresponsible fiscal behavior that could have short-term advantages to one of them but that would be collectively damaging. Coordination failures with subnational governments in the 1990s contributed to macroeconomic instability and led several countries to adopt fiscal responsibility laws as part of the remedy. The paper analyzes the characteristics and effects of fiscal responsibility laws in seven countries -- Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, and Peru. Fiscal responsibility laws are designed to address the short time horizons of policymakers, free riders among government units, and principal agent problems between the national and subnational governments. The paper describes how the laws differ in the specificity of quantitative targets, the strength of sanctions, the methods for increasing transparency, and the level of government passing the law. Evidence shows that fiscal responsibility laws can help coordinate and sustain commitments to fiscal prudence, but they are not a substitute for commitment and should not be viewed as ends in themselves. They can make a positive contribution by adding to the collection of other measures to shore up a coalition of states with the central government in support of fiscal prudence. Policymakers contemplating fiscal responsibility laws may benefit from the systematic review of international practice. One common trait of successful fiscal responsibility laws for subnational governments is the commitment of the central government to its own fiscal prudence, which is usually reinforced by the application of the law at the national as well as the subnational level.

Bargaining for a new fiscal pact in Mexico

The authors consider the malaise with the present set-up of fiscal federalism in Mexico from the points of view of the main players-the federal government, the states, the municipalities, and the citizen voters-in order to identify the areas of potential common interest as well as the direct conflicts. There is a zero-sum game on some issues, like the size of aggregate transfers, but not on others, like raising tax collection and improving accountability for service delivery. The authors consider bargain packages that combine mutually beneficial changes and thus might obtain broad enough political support. They analyze the bargaining packages in two main tracks-one concerning tax assignments, revenue sharing, and tax administration, and another concerning the conjunction of earmarked transfers and accountability for service provision. An important result is that almost all states would find it fiscally attractive to impose a sales tax that replaced part of the federal value-added tax (VAT), even if the federal government reduced revenue sharing enough to cover half the cost of reducing the VAT rate to make room for the state tax.

A New Model for Market-Based Regulation of Subnational Borrowing : The Mexican Approach

Faced with weak sub-national finances that pose a risk to macroeconomic stability, Mexicos federal government in April 2000 established an innovative incentive framework to bring fiscal discipline to state and municipal governments. That framework is based on two pillars: an explicit renunciation of federal bail-outs, and a Basel-consistent link between the capital-risk weighting of bank loans to sub-national governments, and the borrowers credit rating. In theory, this new regulatory arrangement should reduce moral hazard among banks and their state, and municipal clients; differentiate interest rates on the basis of the borrowers creditworthiness; and, elicit a strong demand for institutional development at the sub-national level. But its access will depend on three factors critical to implementation: 1) Whether markets find the federal commitment not to bail out defaulting sub-national governments credible. 2) Whether sub-national governments have access to financing other than bank loans. 3) How well bank capital rules are enforced.