This paper studies the effect of political variables on the gains obtained by Spanish regions in periodical bargaining of the intergovernmental financing agreements and on the regional distribution of discretional earmarked grants over the period 1987-2008. First, we find that the relationship...

The aim of this paper is to analyse cross-country differences in the degree of inter-regional redistribution achieved by means of taxes and expenditures in 21 European countries over the period 1995-2009. We rely on a standard approach based on the observation and comparison of both primary and...

Based on a sample of 227 elections in seventeen Western European countries over the period of 1945-1998, this paper examines to what extent party systems are shaped by fiscal and political decentralization. With the exception of a few special cases, empirical evidence does not support the...

The aim of this paper is to shed additional light on the determinants of budget transparency in local governments. Our work is based on a Likert-type survey questionnaire specifically designed to measure budget transparency in small municipalities. The questionnaire is based on the IMF’s...

The need for infrastructure building, replacement and updating is large worldwide and governments - particularly subnational governments - will need to mobilise budgetary resources while simultaneously restoring public finances to sound health and meeting other spending pressures. This paper...

This paper tests the hypothesis that, by giving people more voice in the government decision-making process, fiscal decentralisation fosters social capital, measured in terms of interpersonal trust. Empirical evidence based on World Values Survey data and seemingly unrelated probit estimations...

This article examines the effect of political variables on the gains obtained by Spanish regions in periodical bargaining of the intergovernmental financing agreements and on the regional distribution of discretional earmarked grants. First, we find that the relationship between gains in...

This paper explores the impact of decentralization on countries’ fiscal outcomes paying attention to one aspect usually neglected in the literature: the relevance of self-interested local politics. Relevance that can be proxied by the nationalization of political party systems, namely the...

In this paper we explore to what extent political regimes affect the competitive balance in domestic football (soccer) leagues. Relying on data from around 50 European countries and over 2,000 domestic leagues, we show that the percentage of league competitions won by the most successful club in...