We examine the human development consequences of transferring responsibility for public service provision to local governments in India, using state-level variation in the timing of administrative decentralization reforms. We find that devolution of the responsibility for health functions from...

The effectiveness of public funds in increasing public employment has long been a question on public and labor economists' minds. In most federal countries local governments employ large fractions of the working population, meaning that a tool for stimulating local public employment can...

The effectiveness of public funds in increasing public employment has long been a question on public and labor economists’ minds. In most federal countries local governments employ large fractions of the working population, meaning that a tool for stimulating local public employment can...

Governments do not have perfect information regarding the priorities and the needs of different groups in the economy. This lack of knowledge opens the door for different groups to lobby the government in order to receive the government?s support. We set up a model of hierarchical contests and...

A rigorous understanding of the developmental effect of fiscal transfers to subnational governments remains an important policy research issue globally. This paper exploits a novel dataset of 20 years of municipal poverty maps and local public finances to study the effects on local welfare of a...

Governments do not have perfect information regarding the priorities and the needs of different groups in the economy. This lack of knowledge opens the door for different groups to lobby the government in order to receive the government’s support. We set up a model of hierarchical contests and...

We analyze the impact of trade-induced income shocks on the size of local government, and the provision of public services. Areas in the US with declining labor demand and incomes due to increasing import competition from China experience relative declines in housing prices and business...

A large theoretical and empirical literature explores whether politicians and political parties change their policy positions in response to voters' preferences. This paper asks the opposite question: do political parties affect public attitudes on important policy issues? Problems of reverse...

In 2007 the Italian central government started a program by transferring funds to regional governments to develop both private and public early childcare services. Exploiting the different timing of program implementation across regions, we evaluate its effectiveness in boosting the public...

Far-right and far-left parties by definition occupy the fringes of politics, with policy proposals outside the mainstream. This paper asks how public attitudes about such policies respond once an extreme party increases their political representation at the local level. We study attitudes...