Determinants of Expenditure Decentralization: Evidence from China

Alfred Wu and Wen Wang

World Development, 2013, vol. 46, issue C, 176-184

Abstract: This study is the first attempt to examine the determinants of expenditure decentralization at sub-provincial levels in China. The Chinese central government gives detailed guidelines to local governments on public finance, but, ironically, their expenditure assignment is far from being well-regulated. Differences in fiscal decentralization on the expenditure side are enormous among local governments. Employing a panel dataset of 1995–2006, we provide empirical evidence that transfer dependency negatively affects expenditure decentralization in Chinese local governments. It suggests that intermediate governments, i.e., provincial governments, may have “grabbed” central grants for self-interests.

Keywords: decentralization; local government; intergovernmental relations; fiscal transfers; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X13000508
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:wdevel:v:46:y:2013:i:c:p:176-184

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.02.004

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().