Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Approaches
for Climate Change Negotiations: An Analysis
-- Rafael Leal-Arcas
This paper argues that the Kyoto Protocol to the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change was doomed to face difficulties ab initio. It explains why this is the case by analyzing the Kyoto Protocol’s shortcomings and deficiencies. Moving the climate change agenda forward multilaterally among the 195 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is proving to be a serious challenge. The lack of progress in UNFCCC negotiations in recent years, especially the failure to obtain an international agreement on emissions limitations targets and timetables by all major developed and developing country emitters, has led many to question whether the UNFCCC is, in fact, the best and most effective forum for mobilising a global response to climate change. The current approach to negotiating a comprehensive, universal, and legally binding global agreement on climate change is unlikely to succeed. The paper concludes that no breakthroughs will take place regarding a global climate change agreement until there is more political maturity on the side of the US, and until rapidly emerging economies such as China and India indicate that they are ready to play their part in tackling the climate change challenge, since they are part of the solution. Large emitters of green house gas need to be involved for negotiations to come to a conclusion. Much progress is still needed until we reach an international agreement that covers all the world’s countries and that is strong enough to tackle climate change effectively and is equitable enough to gain the sympathy of all countries.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
An Implementable Institutional Reform
that Transfers Control of Government Spending Levels
from Politicians to Voters
-- Philip E. Graves
Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principal-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to non-optimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary rules are seen as necessary to constrain politicians’ tax and spending behavior. Popular among such constraints are various Balanced Budget Amendment proposals. These approaches, however, are shown here to have serious limitations, including failure to address the central concern of spending level. An alternative approach is advanced here that relies on a Coase-like mechanism that transfers control of government spending to the voter. Prisoner’s Dilemma incentives and political competition are seen to be critical to the superiority of the present mechanism to approaches requiring budget balance.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Tax Administration of the Third Tier:
A Study of Two Districts of West Bengal
-- Tapan Kumar Ghosh and Satyen Sarkar
The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act has entrusted Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) (Third Tier) with a wide range of responsibilities. Discharging these responsibilities requires an adequate tax administration. But even prior to this amendment, tax administration of the panchayat bodies were not strong enough to implement the functions they were expected to perform. They are heavily dependent on the grants from Central Government (First Tier) and State Governments (Second Tier). The taxation powers given to PRIs are wide, but doubts have been raised whether they can fully utilise these powers in an effective manner. Panchayats at all the three levels are found to be reluctant to impose taxes due to various reasons. This paper makes an attempt to review the lacunae in the existing tax administration system of collection of revenues by PRIs in West Bengal and suggests measures to rectify the loopholes. Further, it focuses on some problems in tax administration and also examines whether the PRIs at Gram Panchayat (GP) level are able to fully exploit the sources assigned to them or do they face any constraints towards fuller utilisation of present sources of revenue. This analysis mostly deals with the lowest tier of the PRIs, viz., the Gram Panchayats.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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