The United States currently incarcerates a higher share of its population than any other country in the world. We calculate that a reduction in incarceration rates just to the level we had in 1993 (which was already high by historical standards) would lower correctional expenditures by $16.9...

We consider the impact of MERCOSUR on trade among Brazilian states and on trade by Brazilian states with MERCOSUR and the rest of the world. We use a theoretically founded gravity model to shed light on MERCOSUR’s possible creation and diversion effects as well as its “preference erosion”...

Participatory Democracy is a process of collective decision making that combines elements from both Direct and Representative Democracy: Citizens have the power to decide on policy and politicians assume the role of policy implementation. The aim of this paper is to understand how Participatory...

This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of additional unrestricted grant financing on local public spending, public service provision, schooling, literacy, and income at the community (município) level in Brazil. Additional transfers increased local public...

Does additional government spending improve the electoral chances of incumbent political parties? This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on this question. Our research design exploits discontinuities in federal funding to local governments in Brazil around several population...

This paper provides regression discontinuity evidence on long-run and intergenerational education impacts of a temporary increase in federal transfers to local governments in Brazil. Revenues and expenditures of the communities benefiting from extra transfers temporarily increased by about 20%...

Since the 1970s, the world follows a triple evolution in favor of democratization, opening and decentralization. Brazil has been following this movement with a democratic and decentralizing constitution and by the adoption of market-friendly policies. However, since the Real Plan (1993), Brazil...

A travers l'analyse de la conception et de la mise en œuvre d'un projet d’administration, ce cas vise à mettre en lumière les problèmes et enjeux de la déclinaison et du pilotage d'une stratégie dans le contexte public. Après avoir présenté les composantes et enjeux du pilotage...

As state governments face budget gaps of tens of billions of dollars in FY2009 and FY2010, this issue brief calculates the potential detrimental effects of state budget cuts on unemployment. While Congress considers a national economic recovery package, this issue brief highlights the fact that...

Rapide decentralizatioon since 1992 has given substantial responsability for key government services not just to Russias' 88 regions (oblasts) but also to its 1800 local authorities (raisons). It seems likely that that this will have had consequences for the enquiry of provision of these...