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Fiscal Federalism in the USA

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Synonyms

Intergovernmental fiscal relations; Multilevel government finance

Definition

Fiscal federalism concerns the hierarchical decentralization of governmental fiscal functions, authority, and relations between a national government and subordinate governments (Ostrom et al. 1961; Riker 1964). It is the financial interaction between the different levels of government in a federal system that is characterized by multilevel governments, which addresses the need for equitable distribution of income, maintenance of high employment with stable prices, and establishment of an efficient pattern of resource allocation. Fiscal federalism also deals with understanding the functions and instruments that are best centralized and those that are best decentralized by assigning different roles to different levels of government and providing the needed instruments to perform these functions. In the USA, the levels of government in the federal arrangement are the federal, state, and local...

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Correspondence to Julius A. Nukpezah .

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Nukpezah, J.A., Ahmadu, A.S. (2020). Fiscal Federalism in the USA. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3994-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3994-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

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