Decentralization and electoral accountability: incentives, separation, and voter welfare

Jean Hindriks and Ben Lockwood

No 2005046, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between fiscal decentralization and electoral accountability, by analyzing how decentralization impacts upon incentive and selection effects, and thus on voter welfare. The model abstracts from features such as public good spillovers or economies of scale, so that absent elections, voters are indifferent about the fiscal regime. The effect of fiscal centralization on voter welfare works through two channels: (i) via its effect on the probability of pooling by the bad incumbent; (ii) conditional on the probability of pooling, the extent to which, with centralization, the incumbent can divert rents in some regions without this being detected by voters in other regions (selective rent diversion). Both these effects depend on the information structure; whether voters only observe fiscal policy in their own region, in all regions, or an intermediate case with a uniform tax across all regions. More voter information does not necessarily raise voter welfare, and under some conditions, voter would choose uniform over differentiated taxes ex ante to constrain selective rent diversion.

Keywords: fiscal federalism; decentralization; elections; accountability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2005.html (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Decentralization and electoral accountability: Incentives, separation and voter welfare (2009)
Working Paper: Decentralization and Electoral Accountability: Incentives, Separation, and Voter Welfare (2005)
Working Paper: Decentralization and Electoral Accountability: Incentives, Separation, and Voter Welfare (2005)
Working Paper: Decentralization and Electoral Accountability: Incentives, Separation and Voter Welfare (2005)
Working Paper: Decentralization and Electoral Accountability: Incentives, Separation and Vote Welfare (2005)
Working Paper: Decentralization and Electoral Accountability: Incentives, Separation, and Voter Welfare (2005)
Working Paper: Decentralization and Electoral Accountability: Incentives, Separation, and Voter Welfare (2005)
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