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Innovation is a key driver of high-quality economic development. Building strong relationships between central and local financial authorities, with a clear division of powers and responsibilities and well-coordinated fiscal resources, is both practical and significant. Such collaboration enhances the government’s ability to support scientific and technological innovation, leading to improved outcomes. In this study, multiple mechanisms of fiscal decentralization and government innovation investment in regional innovation were explored based on Chinese-style fiscal decentralization, the theory of fiscal decentralization, and the innovation system. Provincial panel data from 2008 to 2021 were used to examine both the direct effect of fiscal decentralization and the mediating effect of government innovation investment on regional innovation. The results show that fiscal decentralization distorts the government’s fiscal expenditure behavior, significantly inhibiting regional innovation enhancement. The results of a mechanism analysis demonstrate that fiscal decentralization weakens the government’s support and guidance for scientific and technological innovation, but increasing innovation investment can offset this effect and enhance the regional innovation level. Overall, fiscal decentralization negatively affects regional innovation by inhibiting the government’s innovation investment. To address these challenges, the fiscal system requires deeper reform, adjusting the relationship between central and local governments. Additional measures should include improving the government’s performance appraisal system, guiding local authorities to adopt appropriate performance perspectives, increasing fiscal expenditure and the government’s role in scientific and technological innovation, and enhancing independent scientific and technological innovation.

In 1420, Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), known as the Magnanimous, signed a legal contract with a group of patrons (i.e., shipowners and shipmasters) to secure ships for the royal fleet and military support to complete the conquest of Sardinia and launch an offensive against Corsica, then under Genoese rule. According to this agreement, the sovereign temporarily granted these patrons control over the kingdom’s most significant fiscal resources, namely, the revenues generated from grain and foodstuff exports through the sale of export licenses (tratte). The agreement also resulted in the transfer of extensive public authority from the Crown to the patrons, who gained direct administrative control over the ports, their personnel, and the castles located in the same port towns. After examining the reconstruction of the royal patrimony following Alfonso’s ascension to the Crown of Aragon in 1412, this essay explores Sicily’s role in financing the political and military agenda of Alfonso the Magnanimous, focusing on the agreement between the monarch and the consortium of shipowners and shipmasters. In this regard, it provides a detailed analysis of the contract’s contents, the distribution of fiscal resources among the patrons, and their social origins. Finally, the essay discusses Sicily’s increasing strategic and financial significance in supporting the Crown of Aragon’s subsequent campaigns in Naples and the Italian Mezzogiorno.  

This paper provides a conceptual overview of economists' attempts to learn about the effects of taxes on extractive resources. The emphasis is on research methods and techniques, with no attempt to provide a comprehensive tabulation of previous empirical results or policy conclusions regarding preferred tax instruments or systems. We argue, in fact, that the nature of such conclusions largely depends on the researcher's choice of modeling framework. Many alternative frameworks and approaches have been developed in the literature. Our goal is to describe the differences among them and to note their strengths and limitations.

Sub-Saharan Africa's growth performance during the past three years has been the best in more than three decades, and higher oil revenues and increased debt relief have been used to make progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Despite spending pressures, most countries have managed to preserve macroeconomic stability with policies intended to support and sustain the region's higher growth. This latest REO is complemented by analyses on the macroeconomic challenges for oil producers, the changing trade patterns, including with China, and the development of government debt markets.