Course title

Local Finance

Code

 FIN 430

Professor

Suzana Makreshanska Mladenovska, Ph.D.

Course objectives (competences): The main objective of the course is to teach students the basic principles of local government finance and fiscal decentralization. After completing the course, students should be able to: 

• distinguish local from national public goods and services;
• calculate optimal local supply of goods and services;
• understand the pricing of local goods and services;
• explain the objectives of fiscal decentralization and its benefits;
• identify the role of local governments in the economy;
• evaluate alternative local government revenue sources;
• analyze the effects of grants and fiscal equalization;
• discuss fiscal decentralization issues in Republic of Macedonia and
• analyze local government budgets in the Republic of Macedonia.

• Government and market failures: externalities, public goods, natural monopolies
• Demand and supply of local public goods and services
• Price determination of local public goods: user fees
• Local aspects of property taxes and tax capitalization
• Fiscal decentralization: measurement and effects
• Distribution of functions across levels of government
• Distribution of revenue sources across levels of government
• Fiscal equalization and grants
• Local finance in the Republic of Macedonia