World Bank Regional & Sectoral Studies

1 total work

Decentralization of the Socialist State

by Richard Miller Bird, Robert Ebel, and Christine Wallich

Published 1 June 1995

Emphasizes the importance of designing a well-functioning intergovernmental fiscal system for achieving the reform objectives of economies in transition. This study explores the issues involved in redesigning intergovernmental relations in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, where extensive political and fiscal decentralization is now underway. The volume focuses on the elements of decentralization in the transitional economies that distinguish them from those in the rest of the world. The book shows that in the transition from a command to a market economy, designing a well-functioning intergovernmental fiscal system is a prerequisite for achieving other reform objectives: macroeconomic stability, private sector development, and a social safety net for those hurt by the transition. The study further demonstrates that a broader analytical framework than is conventionally involved in the study of intergovernmental finance is needed for analyzing fiscal issues in these economies.