The project aims at analyzing the financial impacts of the new structure of counties and the new law on fiscal equalization on the regional administrative bodies in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Thereby, aspects of location policy and regional policy are analyzed while the levy on counties is considered. Also an alternative conception of a fiscal equalization scheme is shown.
To isolate the effects of both planned reforms the analysis is performed double-staged. On the one hand the impacts of the implementation of the draft of the law of rearranging counties based on the current fiscal equalization law are analyzed. On the other hand the impacts of the new formulation of the fiscal equalization law based on the new structure of counties are shown. The analysis of the impacts of the levy on counties is based on two scenarios, namely the adjustment of the levy on counties based on population figures and based on the financial power.
Data from the Ministry of the Interior Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
The analysis of the consequences for the resource allocation shows, that such counties that are enlarged by a large county-dependent city gain, while the remaining counties experience a loss. The county-independent and large county-dependent cities gain in terms of grants, while the county-dependent municipalities lose. Compared to the neutral allocation of resources the large county-dependent cities obtain significantly higher grants, since without a further (already announced) adjustment of the fiscal equalization law, they still obtain grants that are dedicated for tasks of the county. Symmetrically, counties that comprise a large county-dependent city obtain a lower level of grants. The hanseatic city of Rostock and the state capital Schwerin gain notably compared to the neutral allocation of resources. This counters the insufficient funding of centres in the old fiscal equalization law. A differentiation of the apportionment to counties in favour of the large county-dependent cities is recommended with respect to county tasks for which these cities are still in charge and with respect to a possible excessive fiscal demand of the large county-dependent cities. Furthermore, it is recommended to consider a two-column system, in which grants for municipality tasks are provided for both county-dependent and county-independent cities and grants for county tasks are provided for both counties and county-independent cities.
Büttner, Thiess (with Petra Enß, Fédéric Holm-Hadulla, Robert Schwager, Christiane Starbatty and Wiebke Webering), Der kommunale Finanzausgleich in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: Langfristige Entwicklung und Reformperspektiven Teil I: Der vertikale Finanzausgleich, ifo Forschungsbericht No. 45 (2010) ( Abstract )
Büttner, Thiess (with Petra Enß, Fédéric Holm-Hadulla, Robert Schwager, Christiane Starbatty and Wiebke Webering), Der kommunale Finanzausgleich in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: Langfristige Entwicklung und Reformperspektiven Teil II: Der horizontale Finanzausgleich, ifo Forschungsbericht No. 46 (2010) ( Abstract )
RSS