Serbia : Decentralization and Local Service Delivery

World Bank

Washington, DC

关键词: ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS;    ADMINISTRATIVE FEES;    ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE;    ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS;    AGGREGATE DEMAND;   

RP-ID  :  42154

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Serbia's ability to achievemacroeconomic stabilization and restructure its publicfinances has been, and will continue to be, impacted by thepolicy actions of its sub-national governments. For thepurposes of this paper, these include the province ofVojvodina and municipal governments. In many countries, thefiscal performance of sub-national governments has createdproblems for macroeconomic management through the running ofdeficits, accumulation of arrears, or the incurring of debtswhich must eventually be covered by the central government.This chapter examines the experience to date and theinstitutional mechanisms for macroeconomic management at thesub-national level in Serbia. The next section of thischapter reviews the fiscal performance of Serbiansub-national governments, especially in relation to theRepublican government's ongoing efforts to restructurethe public sector. A key finding is that the composition ofpublic expenditures evolved quite differently at theRepublican and sub-national levels, especially during thesuccessful fiscal consolidation of 2003-2005, when controlof spending on wages and salaries and on enterprisesubsidies at the central level was not matched at thesub-national level. The increase in subsidies to municipalenterprises, combined with the growing arrears of suchfirms, points to a need to focus on their restructuring andgovernance. The third section reviews the institutionalframework for macroeconomic management in the sub-nationalgovernments. Since 2002, a number of important laws havestrengthened the framework for regulating the finances andborrowing of sub-national governments. The capacity of theMinistry of Finance to monitor and report on fiscal outcomeshas also improved significantly. As a result, over the lastseveral years, sub-national governments have broadly adheredto their spending and debt limits. However, further delaysin the restructuring of municipal enterprises, coupled withthe likely emergence or growth of new financing sources forsub-national governments (including borrowing and theproceeds from privatization and other asset sales), couldcreate additional spending pressure and lead to largerdeficits at the sub-national level. The fourth and finalsection summarizes the main conclusions of this chapter.