The most important theoretical argument concerning decentralization is that it can improve governance by making … decentralization affects governance, in particular how it might increase political competition, improve public accountability, reduce …

We review empirical evidence on the ability of decentralization to enhance preference matching and technical efficiency … evidence of decentralization's effects on service delivery is weak, incomplete and often contradictory. Our own unweighted … that decentralization increases technical efficiency across a variety of public services, from student test scores to …

I examine decentralization through the lens of the local dynamics that it unleashes. The national effects of … decentralization are simply the sum of its local-level effects. Hence to understand decentralization we must first understand how local …

The effects of decentralization on public sector outputs is much debated but little agreed upon. This paper compares … the remarkable case of Bolivia with the more complex case of Colombia to explore decentralization's effects on public … education outcomes. In Colombia, decentralization of education finance improved enrollment rates in public schools. In Bolivia …

With strong conceptual arguments in its favor, decentralization is a popular and growing policy trend across the world … questions: 1)Why does decentralization produce indifferent results? and 2) Why is there so much centralization in the first …