Fifty-one applications received

The Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB) recently awarded six grants for research projects in the field of fiscal federalism, one of the Institute’s main lines of research. Each grant is worth 6,000 euros. Applications were accepted from researchers working on projects in the following areas: the evaluation of decentralization and intergovernmental subsidies, tax competition, the award of subsidies and interregional fiscal flows; policy, corruption and efficiency in local governments; fiscal federalism and the financial system of sub-national governments in general. A part of the funding was reserved for research projects on fiscal federalism in Spain.

Fifty-one applications were received, ten of which corresponded to studies of fiscal federalism in Spain. The directors of the IEB’s research program in fiscal federalism (Nuria Bosch-Roca and Albert Solé-Ollé) reserved two of the grants for Spanish projects, and the other four were awarded to international projects. The grants were awarded on the basis of the researchers’ CVs, the academic merit of the research project, and its relevance to policy design.

THE SPANISH PROJECTS

One of the Spanish projects selected was Efficiency and elusion: both sides of public enterprises in Spain, by Roberto Fernández Llera and Mª Ángeles García Valiñas, researchers at the University of Oviedo. The study analyses the creation of regional public firms as an alternative financial mechanism in Spain’s Autonomous Regions. The other Spanish project selected was Fiscal decentralization and intergovernmental grants: the European Regional Policy, by Juan González Alegre of the European University Institute. Taking the situation in Spain as its starting-point, the study analyses whether the impact of intergovernmental subsidies in regional fiscal policies – that is, their effectiveness in encouraging investment and public consumption – is sensitive to different levels of fiscal decentralization.

THE INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

One of the successful international applications was The political economy of equalization, by the researcher Jonathan Rodden (Stanford University), which analyses the differences in the interregional redistribution of wealth in Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, the US, Argentina, and Brazil.

Another of the projects selected was Fiscal federalism and electoral accountability, by Toke Aidt of the University of Cambridge and Jayasri Dutta of the University of Birmingham. Their project is a theoretical contribution to the debate on fiscal decentralization, focusing on a new political cost of centralization: government uncertainty.

Mario Jametti (University of Lugano) and Marcelin Joanis (University of Sherbrooke) were awarded a grant for their project Determinants of fiscal decentralization: political economy aspects, which analyses the factors that explain the degree of decentralization of public spending towards sub-national governments.

The other international project awarded an IEB grant was Electoral rules and fiscal equalization, presented by the researchers Peter Egger (University of Munich), Marko Koethenburger (University of Vienna) and Michael Smart (University of Toronto). This project analyses the impact of electoral regulations on the level and composition of public spending in the context of municipal public finances in Germany.