It is generally accepted that fiscal decentralization increases citizens’ control over politicians, fostering accountability and increasing efficiency. This article identifies the socioeconomic characteristics of citizens (potential voters) that increase their control over local policy-makers...

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing separately for cycles in expenditures for elections in the legislative and the executive. Using municipal data, we can separately identify these cycles and account for general year effects. For the executive branch, we show that it...

This article examines effectiveness of sub-national borrowing control regimes in maintaining overall fiscal sustainability. The results suggest that regulating sub-national borrowing based on fiscal rules performs most efficiently in maintaining fiscal consolidation. Furthermore, sole reliance...

This paper considers a simple dynamic decentralized leadership model with local borrowing and regional productivity enhancing investment. The central government is benevolent but cannot commit. The local governments strategically act while accounting for the ex post motive of the central...

By means of a dynamic panel data analysis, and using a database from municipalities of the province of Barcelona (1993-99), we describe their process of fiscal adjustment to a shock in tax capacity. About 25% of the shock is internalized through an increase in tax effort, 35% through a reduction...

We measure the contribution of fiscal decentralization to trust in government. Using repeated cross-country survey data of individuals on several measures of trust in government over the 1994{2007 period, we estimate an ordered response model of the government trust and fiscal decentralization...

Do governments increase public employment in election years? This paper answers this question by using data from Sweden and Finland, two countries that are similar in many respects but in which local elections are held at different points in time. These facts make it possible for us to separate...

Urban sprawl has recently become a matter of concern throughout Europe, but it is in southern countries where its environmental and economic impact has been most severe. This low-density, spatially expansive urban development pattern can have a highly marked impact on municipal budgets. Thus,...

We analyze the distribution of central transfers to municipal governments for the period between the 1993 and the 2005 electoral reforms using a panel of Italian municipalities. We find evidence that being the birth town of a Member of Parliament results in an increase in yearly transfers per...

This paper analyse the costs and benefits of being a capital or central municipality, where central costs are understood to be incurred specifically as a result of the problems large municipalities located at the centre of an urban agglomeration face and capital costs are understood to result...