"Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, GIZ, in association with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Introduction : approaching recent transformations of intergovernmental relations from multiple profiles / Giorgio Brosio and Juan Pablo Jim�enez -- 2. Federalism and fiscal federalism : the emergence and distortion of the centro-federalist constitutional model in its political and fiscal manifestations / Roberto Gargarella and Gustavo Arballo -- 3. Fiscal decentralization : increasing social cohesion among widely disparate territorial units / Oscar Cetr�angolo and Ariela Goldschmit -- 4. Reflections on two decades of social-spending decentralization / Jos�e Roberto Afonso, Sulamis Dain, Vivian Almeida, Kleber Castro and Ana Cec�ilia Faveret -- 5. Fiscal decentralization and public investment / Luiz de Mello -- 6. The financing of subnational governments / Juan Carlos G�omez Sabaini and Juan Pablo Jim�enez -- 7. Explaining property tax collections in developing countries : the case of Latin America / Cristian Sepulveda and Jorge Martinez-Vazquez -- 8. Intergovernmental transfers in subnational finances / Fernando Rezende and Jo�ao Veloso -- 9. Intergovernmental transfers : a policy reform perspective / Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Cristian Sepulveda -- 10. The intergovernmental allocation of revenue from natural resources : finding a balance between centripetal and centrifugal pressure / Giorgio Brosio and Juan Pablo Jim�enez -- 11. Macroeconomic challenges of fiscal decentralisation / Juan Pablo Jim�enez and Teresa Ter-Minassian -- 12. Fiscal rules for subnational governments? : evidence from Latin America / Veronica Grembi and Alvaro Manoel -- 13. Intergovernmental reforms in Latin America : Asian transplants and the role of international agencies / Ehtisham Ahmad.

Decentralisation and Reform in Latin America analyses the process of intergovernmental reform in Latin America in the last two decades and presents a number of emerging issues. These include the impacts of decentralization and the response of countries in the region to challenge such as social cohesion, interregional and interpersonal disparities, the assignment of social and infrastructure expenditure, macrofinancial shocks, fiscal rules and the sharing of natural resources revenue. The main aim of the book is to assess the effective working of decentralized arrangements and institutions, with a view of suggesting corrections and reforms where the system is not working according to expectations.