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...

Finnish municipalities enjoy ample fiscal autonomy and provide or arrange the provision of a large share of public services. In recent years, their spending and debt has been increasing steadily, especially because of population ageing and increases in the cost of health care and social...

This article analyzes the efficiency in the provision of child care services at the municipal level and identifies the main determinants of inefficiency. We use a unique data set on the local child care expenditures in the eastern German State of Saxony. The analysis is performed in two stages....

This paper dealing with financing development addresses how public infrastructure can be paid for and managed in an environment where public resources are limited but the investment needs for these services are great. This is a characteristic that succinctly describes many of the emerging...

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 government works. This paper proposes a theory of...

This paper is based on the new institutional economic approach, which focuses on analysis between services features (asset specificity, outcome measurability) and their eligibility to contract out. This issue, which de facto constitutes one of the subsets of the "make or buy decision" issue, is...

When private goods are publicly provided at subsidized prices, government authorities have to determine the distribution of services on recipients. Such distributions are commonly based on legal regulations and professional guidelines. Thus governments are assumed to develop service standards...

This theoretical paper shows how a central government can induce a policy concerning a municipal matter through a package of a policy requirement and a grant. We find that, due to fiscal competition and the possibility for citizens to move between municipalities, the central government can make...