Book Description

This doctoral thesis contains three essays on equalization transfers in a fiscal federalism. In Chapter One, we study the impact of equalization transfers in a fiscal federalism on the policies of the regional governments. This chapter presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of a fiscal federalism in which two asymmetric regions provide their residents with non-productive public expenditures (a flow) and public capital (a stock). In our model, each regional government behaves strategically in choosing its policies to maximize the discounted welfare of its own residents, under the equalization transfer scheme. Our analysis indicates that the the tax on the use of the private capital input is equal to zero in the steady state. In addition, we observe that the only change induced by the equalization transfer scheme is an increase in the non-productive public expenditures in less-endowed region (Quebec) with an offsetting fall in the non-productive public expenditures in more-endowed region (Ontario). The results of the numerical exercise we carry out also suggest that an equalization scheme in a federal state lowers the welfare gap between a rich and a poor region. In Chapter Two, we investigate how the equalization transfer formula is determined and how the equalization transfer program affects a region's policies. This chapter presents a political economy model of equalization payments in a fiscal federalism in which asymmetric regional governments, who care about the welfare of its own residents, lobby the (incumbent) federal government, who takes into consideration both the welfare of the federation and the political support it receives from the states when allocating equalization transfers. It is shown that if the federal government allows politics to distort its economic policy it actively implements an equalization transfer program that is different from the one it would implement if it behaved like a benevolent dictator. The equalization transfer scheme implemented by the federal government induces a fall in the investment of public capital in both regions, and if the political power of the poor region is sufficiently higher than that of the rich province, then the equalization transfer scheme induces a higher level of the non-productive public good in the poor region than in the rich region. A numerical example is provided to illustrate this result. Chapter Three presents a model of equalization transfers in a federation in which each regional government has private information on its own technology for public service delivery. The aim of the federal government is to design an equalization transfer scheme that is Bayesian incentive compatible and satisfies the interim participation constraint in order to achieve the goal of providing residents of a poor region with at least a certain level of utility without imposing an excessive burden on the giving region. We show that the equalization transfers allow the recipient region to raise its private consumption above the level it would have attained in the absence of equalization transfers because some of the transfer is allocated to raise private consumption. Furthermore, it is shown that the equalization transfers are also lower if the federal government can observe the type of the poor region.