UND Bratislava: Fiscal Decentralization Reforms in Selected Transition Economies

ISP was contracted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Bratislava Regional Centre to produce a series of country studies on the state of fiscal decentralization in five transition economies, including Armenia, Croatia, the Republic of Georgia, Macedonia, and Serbia.

The principal objective of the study was to accomplish an all-encompassing review that systematically captured the fiscal decentralization processes in each of the five countries.

The study covered the formation of subnational governments; the division (assignment) of expenditure responsibilities between the different levels of government; the assignments of revenue sources to subnational governments; the provision of intergovernmental fiscal transfers as well as the development of a framework for subnational government borrowing. In addition to the five country reports, the study produced a final report that integrated and synthesized the experiences from these five countries and drew lessons for future decentralization reforms in these countries.

Jorge Martinez-Vazquez served as Principal Investigator for the study, with substantial contributions from Jamie Boex and Andrey Timofeev. Additional contributions were provided by Marjan Nikolov (President of the Center for Economic Analysis, Macedonia), ISP Associate Michael Schaeffer, and Snezana Stojanovic.