The Importance of Being Local? Administrative Decentralization and Human Development

Latika Chaudhary () and Lakshmi Iyer
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Latika Chaudhary: Naval Postgraduate School

No 17053, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine the human development consequences of transferring responsibility for public service provision to local governments in India, using state-level variation in the timing of administrative decentralization reforms. We find that devolution of the responsibility for health functions from state to local governments, without concomitant authority over personnel or taxation, results in a worsening of neonatal, infant and under-5 child mortality. Such partial devolution results in worse indicators of public health provision, as well as lower rates of primary school completion. Our results cannot be attributed to differential pre-trends, omitted variables bias, or heterogeneous treatment effects.

Keywords: decentralization; infant mortality; primary schooling; local governments; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 H41 H75 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 64 pages
Date: 2024-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-ure
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