Local participatory budgeting in a multilevel government – an institutional analysis of Ecuadorian municipal expenditure policies

This paper analyses participatory budgeting in multilevel governance settings. The Institutional Development and Analysis framework is applied to evaluate two Ecuadorian municipal case studies. Here, participatory budgeting piloted bottom-up institutions to include citizens’ preferences in the allocation of local government expenditures. To formalize and up-scale these local innovations, participatory budgeting became a requirement for all government levels under the 2008 constitution. Higher government level requirements for planning subsequently introduced conflicting demands on decentral budgetary processes and led to partial re-centralization of municipal investment planning. The study thus exemplifies difficulties of i) vertical policy coordination in multilevel participatory budgeting and ii) integrating long-term planning in yearly participatory budgeting investment decisions. These problems need to be resolved to facilitate legitimate and effective participatory budgeting in multilevel governments.

Local Government Expenditures on Care Services vs. Demographic Changes in Poland

Local governments as the smallest units of territorial self‑government in Poland are responsible for providing care services. The growing number of the elderly can influence the expenditures level connected with ensuring proper care for them, and it may constitute a growing problem for local government, especially for districts with a lower level of socio‑economic development. In recent years, a quite high increase in benefits amount due to care services and specialist care services has been observed. Therefore, a question arises whether a significant dependence can be observed between the share of the elderly in the population and the degree of local governments’ financial burden due to providing care services. The aim of this paper is to indicate voivodeships where local governments bear the biggest burden of providing care services and to verify whether it is connected with their demographic situation. The data which were subject to the static analysis conducted came from public sources: the report of the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy of the Republic of Poland and elaborations of the Central Statistic Office. The situation of particular voivodeships has been defined in the scope of society ageing and burdening local government with care services. Only in the case of half of voivodeships it has been proven that the level (low, medium or high) of burden of the said services corresponds to the same level of the number of the elderly in their population, which can confirm that the amount of care services is connected with a demographic situation of a given voivodeship.

Government Spending, Recession, and Suicide: Evidence from Japan

Backgrounds Austerity has been shown to have an adverse influence on people’s mental health and suicide rates. Most existing studies have focused on the governments’ reactions to a single event, for example, the Great Recession of 2008.Methods This study focused on significant changes in fiscal policy between 2001 and 2014 in Japan. The size of expenditures by national and local governments decreased dramatically between 2001 and 2006 under the neoliberal reform and then increased after the global economic crisis and the Great East Japan Earthquake. Using the data from 47 prefectures between 2001 and 2014, we tested whether more spending by the local governments was associated with a lower suicide rate in their jurisdiction. We also investigated whether this relationship was particularly salient during a more severe recession.Results Our analysis revealed that an increase of 1% in the per capita local government expenditures was associated with a decrease of 0.2% in the suicide rates among males and females aged between 40 and 64 and that this correlation was strengthened as the unemployment rate increased, particularly among males.Conclusions Government’s reaction to economic crises can either exacerbate or mitigate the negative impact of the economic recession on people’s mental health and suicide rates.

Government Spending, Recession, and Suicide: Evidence from Japan

Backgrounds: Austerity has been shown to have an adverse influence on people’s mental health and suicide rates. Most existing studies have focused on the governments’ reactions to a single event, for example, the Great Recession of 2008. Methods: This study focused on a significant change in fiscal policy between 2001 and 2014 in Japan. The size of expenditures by national and local governments decreased dramatically between 2001 and 2006 under the neoliberalism reform and then increased after the global economic crisis and the Great East Japan Earthquake. Using the data from 47 prefectures between 2001 and 2014, we tested whether more massive spending by the local governments was associated with a lower suicide rate in their jurisdiction. We also investigated whether this relationship was particularly robust during a more severe recession. Results: Our analysis revealed that an increase of 1% in the per-capita local government expenditures was associated with a decrease of 0.2% in the suicide rates among males and females aged between 40 and 64 and that this correlation was strengthened as the unemployment rate increased. Conclusions: Government’s reaction to economic crises can either exacerbate or mitigate the negative impact of the economic recession on people’s mental health and suicide rates.

An Analysis of the Efficiency of Local Government Expenditure and the Minimum Efficient Scale in Vietnam

The purposes of this study were to; (i) estimate the efficiency of local government expenditure by province and city in Vietnam, (ii) test if there was a change in the efficiency of local government expenditure with the rapid development of Vietnam, and (iii) estimate the size of the population that is improving local government expenditures. By using the stochastic frontier cost function method to estimate the cost inefficiency, we found that Vietnam has been improving the efficiency of local government expenditure while achieving rapid economic growth from FY2005 to FY2009. In addition, we simulated a minimum efficient scale (MES) to determine the size of the province population that is improving local government expenditures. We found that the MES in Vietnam is 1,394,859.