Fiscal decentralization and public sector efficiency: evidence from OECD countries

Antonis Adam, Manthos Delis () and Pantelis Kammas ()

Economics of Governance, 2014, vol. 15, issue 1, 17-49

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of fiscal decentralization on public sector efficiency (PSE). We first use a theoretical framework that illustrates the two opposing forces that shape a non-monotonic effect of fiscal decentralization on PSE. Subsequently, we carry out an empirical analysis for 21 OECD countries, between 1970 and 2000. A country-level dataset is used to measure PSE in delivering education and health services and the new indices are regressed on well-established decentralization measures. Irrespective of whether PSE concerns education or health services, an inverted U-shaped relationship has been identified between government efficiency in providing these services and fiscal decentralization. This relationship is robust across several different specifications and estimation methods. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Keywords: Public sector efficiency; fiscal decentralization; OECD countries; C14; C24; H11; H50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10101-013-0131-4 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Fiscal decentralization and public sector efficiency: Evidence from OECD countries (2012)
Working Paper: Fiscal Decentralization and Public Sector Efficiency: Evidence from OECD Countries (2008)
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:spr:ecogov:v:15:y:2014:i:1:p:17-49

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10101/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10101-013-0131-4

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Governance is currently edited by Amihai Glazer and Marko Koethenbuerger

More articles in Economics of Governance from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().