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 prob...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, D.C.
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/05/4966775/fiscal-responsibility-laws-subnational-discipline-latin-american-experience http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14034 |
| Summary: | 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. |
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