Expenditure Decentralization: Does It Make Us Happier? An Empirical Analysis Using a Panel of Countries

Leonardo E. Letelier-S and José L. Sáez-Lozano
Additional contact information
Leonardo E. Letelier-S: Institute of Public Affairs, University of Chile, 8320208 Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile
José L. Sáez-Lozano: Department of International and Spanish Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences, Office B-301, Campus Universitario de La Cartuja, 18071 Granada, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 18, 1-17

Abstract: This paper analyzes whether fiscal decentralization of education, health, housing, social protection, recreation, culture and religion, public order and safety, and transportation have a significant effect on individual well-being. The empirical analysis is based on a non-linear hierarchical model that combines individual data (level 1) with country-level data (level 2). We match 89,584 observations from the World Value Service and the European Value Service (various years) with the average value of data recorded for 30 countries by the Government Financial Statistics (IMF). While fiscal decentralization in education and housing appears to have a negative effect on well-being, this effect is positive in the cases of health and culture and recreation. We interpret this as evidence in favor of a “selective” decentralization approach.

Keywords: decentralization; happiness; subjective well-being; public policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7236/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7236/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:18:p:7236-:d:408735

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().