The present work investigates the relationship between municipal fragmentation and regional per capita GDP growth rate, using a panel of OECD TL2 regions in the period 1996-2011. According to the fiscal decentralisation literature, fragmentation should enhance growth as local government closer...

Slow productivity growth in advanced economies holds back income gains and therefore improvements in well-being. Sluggish productivity gains in aggregate hide a growing gap between firms at the frontier, which display sustained productivity growth, and the rest of firms whose productivity...

There are many situations where the best outcome is reached through co-operation and co-ordination of agents’ actions. Although this is the best collective outcome, economic agents may fail to implement such co-operative strategy. The reason for this failure may be lack of information about...

Fiscal decentralisation can lead to a more efficient provision of local public goods and services and promote a better match between policies and citizens’ preferences. At the same time, however, there are concerns about whether all regions will gain from more autonomy. Decentralisation may...

This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal decentralisation and economy-wide disposable income inequality. Drawing on a dataset of up to 20 OECD countries over a period from 1996 to 2011, a regression analysis is performed, relating several indicators of national income inequality...

Across the OECD, GDP per capita is converging. In contrast, regional disparities – or differences in GDP per capita across jurisdictions – are rising, mainly as a result of widening productivity differences. Fiscal decentralisation could help reduce them again. According to new OECD...