The most important theoretical argument concerning decentralization is that it can improve governance by making government more accountable and responsive to the governed. Improving governance is also central to the motivations of real-world reformers, who bear risks and costs in the interest of...

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...

With strong conceptual arguments in its favor, decentralization is a popular and growing policy trend across the world. And yet dozens of empirical studies have failed to find convincing evidence that past reforms have worked. This begs two questions: 1)Why does decentralization produce...

We review empirical evidence on the ability of decentralization to enhance preference matching and technical efficiency in the provision of health and education in developing countries. Many influential surveys have found that the empirical evidence of decentralization's effects on service...

Decentralization is meant to improve access to public services, but relatively few studies examine this question empirically. We explore the effects of decentralization on access to health and education in Colombia using an original database covering over 95 % of Colombian municipalities. We...

Bangladesh in on track to achieve most of the MDGs goals, even the difficult ones like infant and maternal mortality provided that the quality and institutional mechanisms of service delivery to the poor are improved. This report provides an account of Bangladesh's MDG success but also...

Ethiopia, like most developing countries, has opted to deliver services such as basic education, primary health care, agricultural extension advice, water, and rural roads through a highly decentralized system (Manor 1999; Treisman 2007). That choice is based on several decades of theoretical...

Hundreds of studies have failed to establish the effects of decentralisation on a number of important policy goals. This paper examines the cases of Bolivia and Colombia to explore decentralisation’s effects on government responsiveness and poverty-orientation. I first summarize economic data...

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...

Summary We examine whether local governance can improve social development empirically, using good and bad cases of public health outcomes in Bangladesh. We explore the institutional underpinnings of service provision, digging down beneath the "rules of the game" to analyze the beliefs,...