Fiscal weakness, the (under-) provision of public services, and institutional reform
Oechslin,Manuel Rodriguez,Mauricio
Oechslin,Manuel
Rodriguez,Mauricio
Abstract
The fact that many developing countries spend little on growth-promoting public services is often blamed on “fiscal weakness”. We propose a novel framework to study the consequences of an exogenous improvement in public revenues. We demonstrate that higher revenues may induce the group in power to use a dual repression approach, one pillar of which is to aggravate the “underspending” on growth-promoting public services. However, we also identify circumstances in which the group in power will abstain from repression and instead opt for institutional reform. This result contrasts with the view that exogenous revenue improvements necessarily undercut growth-promoting institutions.
Description
Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2020.
Date
2021-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Fiscal weakness, public services, reform, repression, resource extraction, D70 - General, O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, F53 - International Agreements and Observance ; International Organizations, H50 - General, Q34 - Natural Resources and Domestic and International Conflicts
Citation
Oechslin, M & Rodriguez, M 2021, 'Fiscal weakness, the (under-) provision of public services, and institutional reform', Conflict Management and Peace Science, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 20-44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0738894219894735
License
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess