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Equalization Payments
Equalization payments are cash payments made in some federal systems of government from the federal government to subnational governments with the objective of offsetting differences in available revenue or in the cost of providing services. Many federations use fiscal equalisation to reduce the inequalities in the fiscal capacities of sub-national governments arising from the differences in their geography, demography, natural endowments and economies. The level of equalisation sought can vary, however. The payments are generally calculated based on the magnitude of the subnational "fiscal gap": essentially the difference between fiscal need and fiscal capacity. Fiscal capacity and fiscal need are not equivalent to measures of fiscal revenue and expenditure, as making them so would induce perverse incentives to subnational governments to reduce fiscal effort. Australia Australia introduced a formal system of horizontal fiscal equalisation (HFE) in 1933 to compensate states/terri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perverse Incentive
The phrase "perverse incentive" is often used in economics to describe an incentive structure with undesirable results, particularly when those effects are unexpected and contrary to the intentions of its designers. The results of a perverse incentive scheme are also sometimes called cobra effects, where people are incentivized to make a problem worse. This name was coined by economist Horst Siebert based on an anecdote taken from the British Raj. The British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped. The cobra breeders set their snakes free, leading to an overall increase in the wild cobra population. Cited in Brickman, p. 326. Perverse incentives arise in various fields such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Care
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health professions, allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. The term includes work done in providing primary care, wikt:secondary care, secondary care, tertiary care, and public health. Access to health care may vary across countries, communities, and individuals, influenced by social and economic conditions and health policy, health policies. Providing health care services means "the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxation And Redistribution
A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax compliance refers to policy actions and individual behavior aimed at ensuring that taxpayers are paying the right amount of tax at the right time and securing the correct tax allowances and tax relief. The first known taxation occurred in Ancient Egypt around 3000–2800 BC. Taxes consist of direct or indirect taxes and may be paid in money or as labor equivalent. All countries have a tax system in place to pay for public, common societal, or agreed national needs and for the functions of government. Some countries levy a flat percentage rate of taxation on personal annual income, but most scale taxes are progressive based on brackets of yearly income amounts. Most countries charge a tax on an individual's income and corporate income. Cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Economics
Public economics ''(or economics of the public sector)'' is the study of government policy through the lens of economic efficiency and Equity (economics), equity. Public economics builds on the theory of welfare economics and is ultimately used as a tool to improve social welfare. Welfare can be defined in terms of well-being, prosperity, and overall state of being. Public economics provides a framework for thinking about whether or not the government should participate in economic markets and if so to what extent it should do so. Microeconomic theory is utilized to assess whether the private market (economics), market is likely to provide efficient outcomes in the absence of governmental interference; this study involves the analysis of government taxation and government spending, expenditures. This subject encompasses a host of topics notably market failures such as, Public good (economics), public goods, externalities and Imperfect competition, Imperfect Competition, and the cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiscal Federalism
As a subfield of public economics, fiscal federalism is concerned with "understanding which functions and instruments are best centralized and which are best placed in the sphere of decentralized levels of government" (Oates, 1999). In other words, it is the study of how competencies (expenditure side) and fiscal instruments (revenue side) are allocated across different (vertical) layers of the administration. An important part of its subject matter is the system of transfer payments or grants by which a central government shares its revenues with lower levels of government. Federal governments use this power to enforce national rules and standards. There are two primary types of transfers, conditional and unconditional. A conditional transfer from a federal body to a province, or other territory, involves a certain set of conditions. If the lower level of government is to receive this type of transfer, it must agree to the spending instructions of the federal government. An exam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiscal Imbalance
Fiscal imbalance is a mismatch in the revenue powers and expenditure responsibilities of a government. Fiscal imbalances as differences in net fiscal benefits A fiscal imbalance emerges when sub-national governments have different abilities to raise funds from their tax bases and to provide services. This creates differences in ‘net fiscal benefits’, which are a combination of levels of taxation and public services. It is these NFBs which are the main cause of horizontal fiscal disparities that in turn generate the need for equalization grants. Prominent among the objectives commonly attributed to intergovernmental fiscal transfers is ‘equalization’ of fiscal capacities or resolution of fiscal imbalances. Thus, the transfer system can promote efficiency in the public sector and can level the field for intergovernmental competition. The discussion of fiscal imbalance and equalisation was of particular importance in the drafting of the new Iraqi constitution. It was a stick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weimar Constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich (), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era. The constitution created a federal semi-presidential republic with a parliament whose lower house, the Reichstag (Weimar Republic), Reichstag, was elected by universal suffrage using proportional representation. The appointed upper house, the Reichsrat (Germany), Reichsrat, represented the interests of the federal states. The President of Germany (1919–1945), president of Germany had supreme command over the military, extensive emergency powers, and appointed and removed the chancellor, who was responsible to the Reichstag. The constitution included a significant number of civic rights such as freedom of speech and ''habeas corpus''. It guaranteed freedom of religion and did not permit the establishment of a state church. The constitution contained a number of weaknesses which, under the difficult conditions of the inter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welfare (financial Aid)
Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed (e.g. pensions), as opposed to ''social assistance'' programs which provide support on the basis of need alone (e.g. most disability benefits). The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury. More broadly, welfare may also encompass efforts to provide a basic level of well-being through subsidized ''social services'' such as healthcare, education, infrastructure, vocational training, and public housing.''The New Fontana Dictionary of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Education
Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education also follows a structured approach but occurs outside the formal schooling system, while informal education involves unstructured learning through daily experiences. Formal and non-formal education are categorized into levels, including early childhood education, primary education, secondary education, and tertiary education. Other classifications focus on teaching methods, such as teacher-centered and student-centered education, and on subjects, such as science education, language education, and physical education. Additionally, the term "education" can denote the mental states and qualities of educated individuals and the academic field studying educational phenomena. The precise definition of education is disputed, and there are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller islands. It has a total area of , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania. Australia is the world's flattest and driest inhabited continent. It is a megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and Climate of Australia, climates including deserts of Australia, deserts in the Outback, interior and forests of Australia, tropical rainforests along the Eastern states of Australia, coast. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last glacial period. By the time of British settlement, Aboriginal Australians spoke 250 distinct l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Territorial Formula Financing
Territorial Formula Financing (TFF) is an annual unconditional transfer payment from Canada's federal government to the three territorial governments of Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut to support the provision of public services. A significant portion of the financial resources of the territorial governments comes from the Canadian federal government through the TFF grant. For instance, during the 2005–06 fiscal year, TFF was approximately 61 per cent of Yukon's, 66 per cent of the Northwest Territories' and 81 per cent of Nunavut's total financial resources. In the 2023-24 fiscal year A fiscal year (also known as a financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. La ..., Yukon will receive $1.252 billion ($28,208 per capita), the Northwest Territories $1.611 billion ($37,073 per capita) and Nunavut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
