Rethinking the political economy of decentralization: how elections and parties shape the provision of local public goods

Raúl A. Ponce-Rodríguez, Charles Hankla (), Jorge Martinez-Vazquez () and Eunice Heredia-Ortiz
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Raul Alberto Ponce Rodriguez

No 1603, Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization from Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network

Abstract: As more and more of the world’s states devolve power and resources to sub-national governments, decentralization has emerged as one of the most important global trends of the new century. Yet there is still no consensus concerning the benefits of decentralization and how to design institutions that can realize these benefits. In this paper, we investigate the political conditions under which the decentralization of authority will improve the delivery of public goods. Building off Oates’ “decentralization theorem” to include inter-jurisdictional spillovers, we develop a new theory suggesting that the interaction of democratic decentralization (the popular election of sub-national governments) and party centralization (the power of national party leaders over sub-national office-seekers) will produce the best service delivery outcomes. To test this argument empirically, we develop a new dataset of sub-national political institutions. Our analyses, which examine educational and health service delivery in 135 countries across 30 years, provide support for our theoretical expectations.

Keywords: decentralization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H70 H71 H72 H73 H74 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pbe, nep-pol, nep-reg and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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http://infogen.webs.uvigo.es/WP/WP1603.pdf First version, 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Rethinking the Political Economy of Decentralization: How Elections and Parties Shape the Provision of Local Public Goods (2018)
Working Paper: Rethinking the Political Economy of Decentralization: How Elections and Parties Shape the Provision of Local Public Goods (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gov:wpaper:1603

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