The decentralization of public services is a major feature of institutional innovation. The main argument in support of decentralization is that it brings decisions closer to the people, thereby alleviating information asymmetries and improving accountability. However, decentralization can also...

The decentralization of education services from the federal government to the provincial governments was an important component of the major fiscal and structural reforms undertaken in Argentina in the early 1990's. The theoretical literature is not conclusive about the absolute superiority of...

The Constitution protects the rights of Americans to participate in politics through assembly and membership in private interest groups. Yet the Founders recognized that interest groups and factions posed a particular danger in a democracy. According to James Madison, there was no way to remove...

This paper is part of a five-country study. It applies an objective indicators' approach to identify the links between access to justice and poverty and the governance-related factors blocking the access to justice among the poorest segments of the population, by using case study analysis

This Chapter provides the context of climate change and infrastructure financing in Australia. It commences with an understanding of the country, its climate change and adaptation policies, followed by an understanding of infrastructure in the country and related climate impacts. Financing...

While EU energy policy attaches much importance to consumers, it is still far from realizing an energy system that is able to meet user needs and interests, and offer full freedom of choice in an efficient, low-cost, secure and sustainable manner. To shed more light on these issues and provide...

This chapter reviews the theory of the voluntary public and private redistribution of wealth elaborated by economic analysis in the last forty years or so. The central object of the theory is altruistic gift-giving, construed as benevolent voluntary redistribution of income or wealth. The theory...

This paper uses a unique data set of local governments’ bond issuance, expenditure, and employment to study the impact of the monoline insurance industry’s demise on local governments’ operations. To show causality, I use an instrumental variable approach that exploits persistent insurance...

Governments in developing countries have low fiscal capacity yet face pressures to provide public goods and services, leading them to rely on various unusual fiscal arrangements. We document one such - hitherto unexplored - arrangement: informal fiscal systems that rely on local bureaucrats to...

Using panel data for a maximum of 109 countries over the years 1976-2000, we empirically analyze the impact of decentralization on the occurrence of transnational terror. Our results show that expenditure decentralization reduces the number of transnational terror events in a country, while...