Issue #2 (Volume 12 2023)

The modeling of the municipalities’ tax burden is one of the most relevant issues, especially in terms of municipal competitiveness. It challenges the definition and delimitation of local authorities’ taxing powers. This study aims to analyze the level of taxation of Portuguese municipalities and how local policies contribute to the definition of a ranking of fiscally more competitive municipalities. The paper applies quantitative methods based on the fiscal information made available by municipalities. It has been determined that it is possible to classify municipalities as more or less competitive through their tax supply, mainly at the level of their ability to set tax rates. In 2021, compared to 2020, the most fiscally competitive municipalities were located in the Autonomous Region of the Azores (Corvo (95.128%); Vila do Pico (95.128%); Madalena (95.128%); Povoação (95.078%); Santa Cruz das Flores (95.072%); Angra do Heroísmo (95.044%); Nordeste (95.036%); Vila Franca do Campo (95.036%); Horta (95.017%); and Ponta Delgada (95.017%)). The study also verified the maintenance of fiscal competitiveness among the most fiscally attractive municipalities, despite having several types of fiscal attraction policy options at their disposal, always conditioned by national legislation. This means fiscal policy is an instrument of competition for attracting companies, people, and productive investment to local municipalities. The existence of an international dogma favorable to the increasing attribution of administrative and financial autonomy to local authorities mainly supports this phenomenon.

The financial self-sufficiency of communities determines their ability to create additional jobs, attract investment resources, offer quality social services, and improve the population’s living standards and well-being. The study aims to identify the casual relationships between financial self-sufficiency and local economic development of Ukrainian territorial communities during economic instability. The paper used integrated assessment based on a spatial approach (identifying the level of local economic development), indicative method (calculating empirical values of financial self-sufficiency of communities), VEC model (analyzing the sensitivity of local economic development to changes in financial self-sufficiency), balanced multi-component regression method (modeling the relationship between local economic development and financial self-sufficiency). Data were gathered on all territorial communities of Ukraine in 2021. The results show that the highest level of local economic development was observed in Dnipropetrovsk oblast (empirical coefficient equal to 0.855), high levels in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kyiv, and Poltava oblasts (0.787; 0.687; 0.684; 0.663 each, respectively), and moderate levels in Zakarpattia (0.448) and Kirovohrad (0.433) oblasts. With increased financial self-sufficiency, local economic development can exceed 2%; a 1% increase in the decentralization of tax revenues and expenditures simultaneously leads to an increase in the attractiveness of the investment climate as an indicator of local economic development (2.3-6.6%). The study proves that the territorial communities of the regions characterized by a low level of local economic development demonstrated higher values of decentralization of interbudgetary revenues than those with higher values of local economic development.

The study examines the impact of fiscal decentralization on Ethiopia’s Subnational (Regional) economic growth. The study followed a quantitative research procedure employing data from 2008 to 2021. The units of analysis in the study are Ethiopia’s sub-national governments (SNGs). The study used the two-step System General Method of Moments (GMM) of dynamic panel estimation because it resolves concerns such as endogeneity and heteroscedasticity. The study’s findings revealed that expenditure, revenue, and composite decentralization have a statistically significant negative effect on regional economic growth. Moreover, among the control variables, inflation and government size have a statistically significant detrimental effect on regional economic growth. However, human capital has no significant effect. Ethiopia’s fiscal decentralization contradicts the goals and theoretical underpinnings of fiscal federalism. This may be because fiscal decentralization and economic activities function within an ethnically based federalism framework. The primary implication is that the federal government needs to reevaluate the transfer of fiscal authority to SNGs. Transforming tax policy into a robust institutional mechanism for economic growth is vital. The revenue and spending sides of intergovernmental relations also need to be closely related. As opposed to prior studies, which utilized one or two fiscal decentralization indicators, this study used multiple indicators, making the study more thorough and closing the knowledge gap.

The purpose of this study is to explore the involvement of citizens in the administration of local budgets, which significantly contribute to the financial and economic independence of rural areas. The study presents the findings of a sociological research conducted in the Turkestan region, Kazakhstan. The survey included 259 rural residents from 14 rural districts and two significant cities in the region, all aged 18 and above and permanent residents of these areas.
The analysis is based on the survey results, focusing on the overall level of citizens’ engagement in decision-making regarding local budget formation and distribution in rural areas. The study reveals a low level of citizen participation in managing the local budget. While general meetings and local gatherings serve as primary avenues for citizen involvement, only 79.9% of respondents reported participating in budget discussions, with only 20.1% of their opinions considered during budget allocation.
Finally, the study identifies several factors that negatively affect effective citizen participation in local budget management. These factors include a lack of timely awareness and information about upcoming planning and budget meetings (56.4%), insufficient transparency in the actions of local executive leaders (Akims) (14.3%), bureaucratic complexity and a formal approach to budget discussions (3.5%), and low levels of citizen trust in rural district Akims (5.4%).

Acknowledgment
This study is funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan (BR18574203).

This study aims to examine whether the institutional factors – governance, asset knowledge, internal control system, and competencies – optimize the utilization of provincial, regency, and municipal governments’ tangible assets in supporting public services. In contrast to previous research, which employed Sharia ethics as exogenous variables, this study includes Sharia ethics as a moderating variable in the model. Sharia ethics is one specific factor in implementing Sharia principles by the government that applies Islamic law in Indonesia. The province of Aceh, with all its regencies and municipals, is the only province that applies Islamic principles in running its government. Primary data were collected using a questionnaire sent to 285 provincial and district government asset managers using a Google form; 229 questionnaires were returned. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to analyze the complex relationships and the hypotheses. The results reveal that institutional factors are not strong enough to optimize the utilization of tangible assets without having deep Sharia ethics. It meant that Sharia ethics is necessary for strengthening the relationship between the institutional factors and the optimization of government asset management in provincial, regency, and municipal governments. The results provide recommendations for provincial, regency, and municipal governments to develop appropriate and reasonable regulations and standards for optimizing asset management within the Aceh government.

Several specific features and circumstances can characterize Ukraine’s policy of external public debt management, and the results are not always unambiguous. The study aims to assess the effect of external public debt on Ukraine’s economy from 2014 to 2022, a period that includes the Crimea annexation, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the beginning of the open Russian military aggression. To analyze the contemporary state of public debt and assess the degree of external debt burden’s impact on the country’s economy, a factor analysis technique known as the principal components method was used. Via the STATISTICA.12 software, it was substantiated that the debt situation worsens with the growth of debt burden and solvency indicators as their values approach the thresholds. The application of the Kaiser criterion allowed the selection of the most influential indicators (principal components) for assessing the external debt burden. The eigenvalue of the first component (inflation rate) is 4.48, and it explains 50% of the variance; the second component (production of export-oriented goods) has an eigenvalue of 2.43, explaining 27% of the variance; the third component (government spending on military purposes) has an eigenvalue of 1.24, and it explains 14% of the variance.

This study aims to examine the factors that affect the level of disclosure of local government financial reports. This paper uses such independent variables as budget expenditure of the local government, government size, and capital expenditure. The financial records of Indonesian local governments that have undergone audit by the supreme agency are analyzed in this study. For the 2020 timeframe, 485 local/city governments in Indonesia served as the research samples, and purposive sampling was employed as the sampling method. SPSS is utilized to support multiple linear regression, which is the data analysis method used in this study. The test findings revealed that budget expenditure (β = 0.274; p < 0.05), government size (β = 0.216; p < 0.05), and capital expenditure (β = 0.178; p < 0.05) have a significant effect on the level of local government financial statements disclosure. It is envisaged that the findings of this study would enable local governments, particularly districts or cities, to better maximize the disclosure of local government financial statements in compliance with government regulation. Local governments will be able to open up information that is easily accessible with the aid of ever-improving technology.

This paper delves into the challenge of financing Sustainable Development Goal 3 “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” (SDG 3). Despite its ambitious nature, the achievement of this goal has been hindered by a substantial lack of funding. The study aims to investigate potential sources to bridge the investment gap in SDG 3, analyzing data from 28 European countries. This includes factors such as the index and progress in sustainable development, sources of investment resources, and healthcare costs for 2020. Logit and probit regression models are employed for the analysis. The results indicate the absence of a statistically significant relationship between the volume of investments from the state, businesses, and households of countries and their level of SDG 3 achievement. However, an interesting finding emerges regarding healthcare expenditures under state insurance programs among European countries, which show a greater extent of progress in achieving SDGs compared to voluntary insurance programs. The paper emphasizes the importance of a balanced approach that uses multiple funding sources and the need for focused policies and partnerships to mobilize resources to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

Acknowledgment
Alex Plastun gratefully acknowledges support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (№ 0121U113830).

The primary goal of this study is to investigate the impact of social aid expenditures on the proportion of poor people in Indonesian provinces, as well as the additional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty levels, with a particular emphasis on the interaction between social assistance spending and the pandemic’s effects. Focusing on 34 provincial governments in Indonesia from 2004 to 2022, the data were analyzed using the two-step GMM system. The results of this study indicate that social aid expenditures negatively and significantly impact the proportion of Indonesia’s population living in poverty. This demonstrates that a rise in social aid expenditures lowers Indonesia’s proportion of the impoverished population. The observed negative impact suggests a real decrease in the poverty rate as social aid expenditures rise. In the meantime, this study discovers a positive and noteworthy impact of the COVID-19 variable. This indicates that compared to the time prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a larger percentage of Indonesians lived in poverty during the pandemic. Furthermore, social aid expenditures were unable to reduce the number of poor people in Indonesia during the COVID-19 period.

This study investigates the relationship between organizational characteristics and the quality of financial statements in Malaysian local government. Organizational characteristics, including status, size, financial stability, tax revenue collection efficiency, and level of competence, were examined to discern their impact on mandatory information disclosure in local government financial statements. Data were collected from 71 local governments in Peninsular Malaysia, representing nearly 74% of the total population, using a combination of secondary data from audited financial reports and official documents, as well as structured questionnaires. The results indicate that tax revenue collection efficiency and the level of competence had a significant positive relationship with financial statement quality. Conversely, organizational characteristics related to status, size, and financial stability did not significantly impact financial statement quality. This implies the greater significance of human resources, precisely tax revenue collection efficiency and account officers’ competence, in shaping local government financial statement quality in Malaysia. These findings support the stewardship theory, confirming the connection between specific organizational characteristics and financial statement quality. However, limitations include relying solely on secondary data and facing certain data collection constraints. Future research can enhance these findings by exploring additional factors through in-depth qualitative or case studies.

Tax competitiveness of the country characterizes the ability of the tax system to obtain permanent competitive advantages in attracting external and mobilizing internal financial resources due to the establishment of the optimal level of tax burden and differentiation of fiscal instruments. The complexity of this indicator determines the presence of a number of drivers of its formation. Shadow tax evasion is one of them. The purpose of the study is to assess the impact of the shadow tax evasion of taxpayers on the level of competitiveness of the tax system on the example of 11 European countries from 2011 to 2021. The methodological tools are regression analysis methods, Shapiro-Wilk tests, and Spearman’s rank correlation. It was determined that informal employment, informal production, and unregistered or informal entrepreneurship are the most common methods of tax evasion. Based on the results of the calculations, regression equations of the influence of shadow tax evasion on the level of competitiveness of the country’s tax system were constructed. It has been proven that shadow tax evasion exerts the greatest influence on the level of tax competitiveness of Slovenia (0.32), Romania (0.34), and Croatia (0.26). The least sensitive to shadow tax evasion is the competitiveness of the Czech Republic’s tax system (0.096). For most analyzed countries, this influence is carried out with a time lag of 2 years. Only in Croatia, this influence is the most substantial with a one-year lag.

Acknowledgment
The study is funded by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under the project No. 09I03-03-V01-00042.
The authors are grateful to the participants of projects “National security of Ukraine through the prevention of financial fraud and money laundering: war and post-war challenges” (2023–2025, state registration number: 0123U101945) and “De-shadowing and regulatory efficiency of environmental taxation: optimization modelling to ensure national security and rational use of nature” (2022–2024, registration number 0122U000777) for numerous discussions and comments.