DISCOVER ICePP
Welcome
Dear visitors, colleagues, and friends,
It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the International Center for Public Policy (ICePP), which serves as the international arm of the Public Finance Research Cluster.
ICePP was established in 1996 within Georgia State University’s newly formed Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Since that time, it has grown into an interdisciplinary public policy center that engages faculty members from multiple departments at GSU and boasts a permanent staff of PhD-holding senior research associates and administrators dedicated solely to center work.
The center has a three-fold mission:
- to implement effective technical assistance and capacity building projects in developing and transition countries,
- to conduct high quality training for international civil servants and policymakers, and
- to carry out and sponsor cutting edge research in public finance and fiscal decentralization.
In pursuing the first goal, ICePP has worked in over 50 countries and in every region of the world. Our projects include the design of intergovernmental fiscal transfer systems, the strengthening of local governance and public financial management, the restructuring of sub-national expenditure and revenue assignment, the analysis of tax capacity, and the systematic evaluation of programs and aid interventions. Among our partners are the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Program, Deloitte, and DAI. Our projects over the years have brought more than $40 million into the university.
On the training front, ICePP regularly organizes training programs with national government civil servants and international professionals covering fiscal decentralization, public finance, and related topics. We work with universities in developing and transition countries to build new degree programs in these areas, and we are a regular participant in the US State Department’s Young African Leaders Initiative program.
Finally, as a university center, we are dedicated to extending the frontier of knowledge in fiscal decentralization and public finance. To that end, we maintain an extensive working paper series and organize regular academic conferences on these topics. We also host PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and international scholars in ICePP and support their scholarly efforts.
I hope that you will take a moment to explore our website and to reach out to me in person!
With warmest regards,
Charles
Charles Hankla
ICePP Director
About the Center
We take a tailored approach to address the nuances of every project and the specific goals of our government partners, relying on nearly 30 years of public policy and finance experience in countries across the globe. It is important for us to learn from each project, develop best practices, and generate new (or refine old) frameworks to inform policy debates and build consensus among stakeholders.
We remain in close collaboration with our counterparts from project development through implementation and evaluation. In some cases, our counterparts become co-authors for publications or consultants on future projects. Unlike many of the other actors in the international development arena, we not only identify gaps in knowledge, but also fill them with innovative academic research.
The core expertise of the center lies in public economics and fiscal policy analysis. Due to their comprehensive nature, fiscal policy reforms often require consideration of a large number of related fiscal aspects, including tax policy reform, tax administration, budgeting and financial management, pension reform, and intergovernmental fiscal relations. Although many practitioners only specialize on a particular piece of the fiscal system, the depth and breadth of ICePP allows us to take into account both the individual components of the fiscal system as well as the architecture of the fiscal system as a whole.
In addition, in recent years ICePP has expanded its work to program evaluation measuring the efficiency of public expenditures and other evidence-based policy evaluation including field experiments and the utilization of quasi-experimental data and techniques with the goal of identifying policy interventions and approaches best suited to international development.
ICePP has a long history of offering training and capacity building programs run by seasoned experts in international economics and public policy. For more than 12 years, ICePP has hosted a week-long Summer School in Public Economics program, during which public professionals and graduate students from across the country meet in Atlanta to learn about real-world application of fundamental public economics across the developing world. Additionally, ICePP regularly prepares programs tailored to the needs of individual government ministries. Topics often cover fiscal decentralization and tax structure reform, and take the shape of one- to two-week long courses held either in Atlanta or the home country.
Since 1997, ICePP has maintained a robust working paper series with contributions from scholars across the globe, which can be accessed here. Topics frequently focus on tax reform, financial efficiency, and aspects of fiscal decentralization in developed and developing countries. The primary objective of this working paper series is to disseminate academic research and findings quickly and stimulate discussion to expand knowledge, instill optimal practice, and build capacity in the public sector around the world to improve human well-being.
ICePP has worked with governmental partners—primarily foreign ministries and legislative bodies—in over 70 countries since its inception in 1996. In addition, we have partnered with international universities for joint training and other educational programs, such as a tailored master’s degree program at GSU for public servants from Indonesia. We also regularly contract with multilateral donor agencies like USAID, the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, and the Asian Development Bank on large-scale technical assistance projects.
ICePP regularly hosts international visiting scholars with diverse cultural and educational backgrounds from across the globe. The program offers the opportunity to collaborate with other scholars as well as become familiar with the public finance systems of the United States as comparative examples to enhance their own scholarship. Visiting scholars have access to GSU libraries and facilities, and ICePP provides office space and networking opportunities with our research staff and AYSPS faculty. Visiting scholars range from PhD students working on dissertations to seasoned faculty nearing or entering retirement.
Other Andrew Young School Resources:
- Fiscal Research Center – Georgia tax policy research and advisement
- Center for State and Local Finance– Research and education on public financial management
- Urban Studies Institute – Interdisciplinary urban research
- Georgia Health Policy Center – Research and programming for health and well-being