%0 Journal Article
%T Fiscal Decentralization, Budget Discipline, and Local Finance Reform in Russia¡¯s Regions
%A Arseny Mamedov
%A Michael Alexeev
%A Nikolay Avxentyev
%A Sergey G. Sinelnikov-Murylev
%J Public Finance Review
%@ 1552-7530
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1091142118804245
%X Using a panel of Russian regions, we estimate the link between intraregional fiscal decentralization and regional budget deficits. Although Russia¡¯s regions are not as autonomous (either politically or fiscally) as regions in some other federal states, we obtain robust and statistically and economically significant results. Specifically, expenditure decentralization has a positive effect on consolidated regional budget balances, while transfer dependence of municipalities is associated with higher deficits. The impact of revenue decentralization depends on whether a regional government can use its tax revenue assignments with the same high degree of discretion that generally characterizes explicit fiscal transfers. We show that a 2009 local finance reform that limited the discretion of regional governments to assign regional tax revenue to municipalities has changed the effect of tax decentralization on budget discipline
%K fiscal federalism
%K budget discipline
%K Russian economy
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1091142118804245