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The conventional theory of fiscal federalism, which sees earmarking largely as a means to deal with positive spillovers in local expenditures, explains neither the level of such grants nor the trends over time. Nor can it readily account for the existence of non-matching, but still categorical, block grants. In this paper, we explore several alternative perspectives that interpret earmarking as a response to information failures between governments and, even more fundamentally, to accountability issues that arise between governments as well as between governments and voters.
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This paper provides a case study of provincial-local transfers in Canada and evaluates the extent to which they are designed to increase local accountability or maintain provincial control. The evaluation is based, in part, on a review of trends in provincial transfers to municipalities and school boards over the last 20 years and, in part, on an assessment of the extent to which 3 grants are designed to satisfy the standard rationales for intergovernmental transfers found in the traditional fiscal federalism literature (vertical fiscal imbalance, horizontal fiscal imbalance, and externalities) or political rationales.
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Presentation delivered by IMFG Director Enid Slack to the Association of Municipal Tax Collectors of Ontario in Minett, Ontario.
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Co-sponsored by Ideas That Matter, on June 8, 2009, Dr. Mark Kleinman, Director of the London City Charter, was joined by panelists Phillip Abrahams, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations, Strategic and Corporate Policy Division, City of Toronto; and Judy Pfeifer, Vice President, Public Affairs, Hill and Knowlton.
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Co-sponsored by Ideas That Matter, on June 8, 2009, a presentation by Dr. Mark Kleinman, Director of the London City Charter. Dr. Kleinman was joined by panelists Phillip Abrahams, Manager, Intergovernmental Relations, Strategic and Corporate Policy Division, City of Toronto; and Judy Pfeifer, Vice President, Public Affairs, Hill and Knowlton.
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Presentation delivered by IMFG Director Enid Slack to the Association des économistes québécois in Montréal, Québec on May 6, 2009.
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Presentation delivered by IMFG Director Enid Slack to the IPTI and IRRV Conference on Land Value Capture in Urban Development in Warsaw, Poland on June 23, 2009.
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A presentation by André Côté, a Masters student at the School of Public Policy and Governance and holder of the Alan Broadbent Fellowship in Municipal Finance and Governance, on March 25, 2009, at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
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