Fiscal stability during the great recesion: Putting decentralization design to the test

Santiago Lago-Peñas, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez () and Agnese Sacchi

No 1806, Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization from Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network

Abstract: There is a longstanding debate in the economics literature on whether fiscally decentralized countries are inherently more fiscally unstable. The Great Recession provides a fertile testing ground for analyzing how the degree of decentralization does actually affect countries’ ability to implement fiscal stabilization policies in response to macroeconomic shocks. We provide an empirical analysis aiming at disentangling the roles played by decentralization design itself and several recently introduced budgetary institutions such as subnational borrowing rules and fiscal responsibility laws on country’s fiscal stability. We use OECD countries’ data since 1995, which includes both a boom period of worldwide economic growth and the Great Recession. Our main finding is that well-designed decentralized systems are not destabilizing. But, in addition, sub-national fiscal and borrowing rules should be at work to improve the overall fiscal stability performance of decentralized countries.

Keywords: sub-national governments; political decentralization; fiscal stability; public deficit. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H70 H72 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2018-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-mac and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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http://infogen.webs.uvigo.es/WP/WP1806.pdf First version, 2018 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Fiscal stability during the Great Recession: putting decentralization design to the test (2020)
Working Paper: Fiscal Stability during the Great Recession: Putting Decentralization Design to the Test (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gov:wpaper:1806

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