This paper examines whether, given the increasing salience of subnational governments, political decentralisation has an impact on overall economic performance. It uses panel data analyses in order to determine the association between a number of the different indices of political...

This paper looks at the relationship between fiscal and political decentralization and the evolution of regional inequalities in a panel of 26 countries -- 19 developed and 7 developing -- for the period between 1990 and 2006. Using an instrumental variables method, it finds that whereas for the...

The global drive towards decentralization has been increasingly justified on the basis that greater transfers of resources to subnational governments are expected to deliver greater efficiency in the provision of public goods and services and greater economic growth. This paper examines whether...

This article examines the effect of the degree of decentralization of social protection expenditure on economic growth, using panel data for twenty OECD countries over the period 1990-2005. Our results show a positive impact of the subnational share of total government expenditure in social...