We study adaptation to climate change in a federalist setting. To protect themselves against an increase in flood risk, regional governments choose among adaptation measures that vary with respect to their costs, the level of protection they offer, and the presence and nature of spillovers to...

Recently China's central government has promoted public goods investment in pursuit of rural development and poverty reduction. However, the top down nature of investment planning may lead to mismatches between public goods projects and the demands of local residents. Using village- and...

This paper provides a political-economy explanation of the degree of centralization in economic policy making. To determine which policies are to be centralized, regions select representatives who then negotiate the degree of centralization and the regional cost shares of centrally decided...

We study adaptation to climate change in a federalist setting. To protect themselves against an increase in flood risk, regional governments choose among adaptation measures that vary with respect to their costs, the level of protection they offer, and the presence and nature of spillovers to...

Many local public goods are allocated by federal governments using fixed regional shares: every region is entitled a fixed share of the total budget for a particular type of public good. This paper compares this fixed regional sharing rule with two alternative allocation rules: first best and...

We explore the effects of decentralization on education and health in Ethiopia using an original database covering all of the country’s regions and woredas (local governments). Ethiopia is a remarkable case in which war, famine and chaos in the 1970s-80s were followed by federalization,...