Devolution Dynamics of Spanish Local Government

Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll, Diego Prior and Emili Tortosa-Ausina
Additional contact information
Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll: Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Campus del Riu Sec, 12071 Castelló, Spain

Environment and Planning A, 2010, vol. 42, issue 6, 1476-1495

Abstract: Over the last few years, there has been a devolutionary tendency in many developed and developing countries. In this paper we propose a methodology to decompose whether the benefits in terms of efficiency derived from transfers of powers from higher to municipal levels of government (the ‘economic dividend’ of devolution) might increase over time. This methodology is based on linear programming approaches for efficiency measurement. We provide an application to Spanish municipalities, which have had to adapt to the European Stability and Growth Pact as well as to domestic regulation seeking local governments' balanced budget. Results indicate that efficiency gains from enhanced decentralization have increased over time. However, the ways in which these gains accrue differ across municipalities—in some cases technical change is the main component, whereas in others catching up dominates.

Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a42506 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Devolution Dynamics of Spanish Local Government (2010)
Working Paper: Devolution dynamics of Spanish local government (2010)
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:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:6:p:1476-1495

DOI: 10.1068/a42506

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().