A study of public finance and fiscal management in developing countries

This dissertation consists of three self-contained chapters, mostly with an empirical emphasis, investigating different aspects of public finance and fiscal management in developing countries. The first chapter is a study of the impact of decentralization on urban public good provision, with a focus on developing countries. This work is unlike others on the subject in at least two ways. First, it examines decentralization and pubic good provision at the city rather the country level. Second, it treats decentralization as endogenous rather than exogenous, recognizing that its extent and nature are influenced by institutional and other factors. The second and third dissertation chapters deal with the fungibility of foreign aid—substitutes for spending the government would have undertaken anyway. The second chapter examines the fungibility of foreign aid given to states in India, while the third chapter investigates fungibility in the context of Sub-Saharan African countries.