Subnational Governments around the world: Structure and finance. A first contribution to the Global Observatory on Local Finances Preliminary version

This report presents a snapshot of subnational government structure and finances in 101 countries. These countries include 17 federations and 84 unitary countries, and, together, comprise over half a million subnational jurisdictions. It provides, through country profiles and a synthesis analysis, qualitative information on subnational government structure and responsibilities, as well as macro financial data assessing subnational government spending, investment, revenue and debt. Financial indicators of the country profiles are accompanied by short comments on the structure of expenditure and investment (by type and economic function), revenue (tax, grants, user fees and property income, etc.) and the main characteristics of the debt and fiscal rules.