Governing together: An international review of contracts across levels of government for regional development

Claire Charbit and Oriana Romano
Additional contact information
Claire Charbit: OECD
Oriana Romano: OECD

No 2017/04, OECD Regional Development Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Contracts are a key tool for vertical co-ordination, enabling dialogue and capacity building across levels of government. They are frequently used for regional development policy in OECD and non-OECD countries. Drawing on contract theory and a variety of national experiences, this paper identifies three main types of contracts between central and subnational governments according to their objectives: i) empowerment; ii) delegation; and iii) policy-sharing contracts. The differentiation of contracts depending on their objective is based on two key factors: the maturity of decentralisation and the capacity of national and subnational governments. It is expected that with the development of subnational /central government capacities (or both), and with the increasing maturity of decentralisation, contracts can shift from one type to another. The paper concludes by suggesting enforcement mechanisms for more effective contracts across levels of government.

Keywords: contract theory; contracts; enforcement; multi-level governance; regional development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H5 H7 K12 R1 R5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/ff7c8ac4-en (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:oec:govaab:2017/04-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Regional Development Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().