Estimating the Autonomy of the Sub National Governments in the Context of Nigeria Fiscal Federalism

  • UGWUOKE Okwudili Walter Federal University Lafia, Nigeria
  • Stephen James ZIRA Modibbo Adama University of Technology Yola, Nigeria
Keywords: Estimating, Autonomy, Sub National Governments, Fiscal Federalism, Nigeria

Abstract

Existing literatures on fiscal federalism in Nigeria show more concern on explaining the pattern of intergovernmental relations or providing an impressionistic view within the context of political economy of possible consequences of such relationships or on revenue allocation principle/sharing and the practice of true fiscal federalism. On that note, several alternatives have been proposed and will continue to be developed. Contrary however, this paper focused on estimating the autonomy of the sub national governments in the context of Nigerian fiscal federalism using both the measure of decentralization as coefficients of vertical imbalance and fiscal (de) centralization indicators formulae. The results of measure of decentralization as coefficients of vertical imbalance found the coefficient of V3 is very close to zero meaning that Nigerian sub national governments lack autonomy in raising revenue. This was validated by the results of fiscal (de) centralization indicators as the disparities between the revenue ratio and expenditure ratio appear to be very wide. Also, the results transfer dependency ratio appears very high showing the heavy dependency of the sub national government on the central government. The paper therefore, submits that Nigeria fiscal federalism lack the essential ingredients of theoretical anchorage of fiscal federalism that presupposes that assignment of functions to the sub national governments should be accompanied by the corresponding revenue responsibilities. On that basis recommended that to ensure the autonomy of the sub national governments, our fiscal federalism should be implemented based on the tenets of tax assignment theory.

Author Biographies

UGWUOKE Okwudili Walter , Federal University Lafia, Nigeria

Department of Economics

Stephen James ZIRA, Modibbo Adama University of Technology Yola, Nigeria

Department of Economics,School of Management and Information Technology

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Published
2019-06-21