IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa14p367.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Decentralization and the quality of local governments: Evidence in European regions with a dose-response approach

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Filippetti
  • Giovanni Cerulli

Abstract

The relationship between decentralization and the quality of governments is one of the core issues of decentralization studies. This paper aims to make two contributions to this research. Firstly, we conduct an empirical analysis at the local level, covering 174 regions across the European countries. Secondly, we employ a novel approach based on a dose-response methodology. Most of the analysis is conducted at the country level. We believe an analysis at the regional level will provide several relevant insights. Firstly, the improvement in the performance of local government is one of the main predictions of the theory of fiscal federalism predicts. Indeed, as Faguet (2014) argues, the strongest theoretical argument in favour of decentralization is that it will improve the accountability and responsiveness of government by altering its structure so as to increase citizen voice and change the deep incentives that public officials face. Secondly, country level analysis hides heterogeneity both in the quality of government as well as in the degree of decentralization. As for the former, variability within country is not negligible. In addition, several countries also exhibit regions characterized by different degree of autonomy. Empirical studies are divided into two main groups. Those which employ a direct measure of government quality, and those which employ indirect measures of government quality, such as for instance education or public works, infant mortality, illiteracy rate (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2006; Enikolopov and Zhuravskaya 2007). In order to measure the quality of government at the regional level we employ a composite indicator developed by ?The QOG Institute' (Charron, Dijkstra, and Lapuente 2014; Quality of Government Institute 2010), a perception-based indicator built from a 34,000-respondents survey from 172 regions within 18 EU member states. In order to measure the degree of political decentralization we employ the ?Regional Authority Index' developed by (Hooghe, Marks, and Schakel 2008, 2008). We introduce a novel dose-response method to identify the impact on decentralization on the quality of government in the provisions of local public goods as a whole, as well as on three indicators: corruption, impartiality, and effectiveness. We find a u-shape relationship. More decentralized regions are those exhibiting a higher quality of government, along with those less decentralized, while those in the middle show a poorer performance. As for the three dimensions, impartiality increases along decentralization, corruption does not have a clear pattern, while the quality of local goods is decreasing with decentralization. Relevant political recommendations are derived.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Filippetti & Giovanni Cerulli, 2014. "Decentralization and the quality of local governments: Evidence in European regions with a dose-response approach," ERSA conference papers ersa14p367, European Regional Science Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p367
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa14/e140826aFinal00367.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2011. "Decentralization, Happiness and the Perception of Institutions," IZA Discussion Papers 5647, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Enikolopov, Ruben & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2007. "Decentralization and political institutions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2261-2290, December.
    3. Olivier Blanchard & Andrei Shleifer, 2001. "Federalism With and Without Political Centralization: China Versus Russia," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(4), pages 1-8.
    4. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922, January.
    5. Dan Stegarescu, 2005. "Public sector decentralisation: measurement concepts and recent international trends," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 26(3), pages 301-333, September.
    6. Faguet, Jean-Paul, 2014. "Decentralization and Governance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 2-13.
    7. Rodden, Jonathan, 2003. "Reviving Leviathan: Fiscal Federalism and the Growth of Government," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(4), pages 695-729, October.
    8. Faguet, Jean-Paul, 2004. "Does decentralization increase government responsiveness to local needs?: Evidence from Bolivia," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 867-893, March.
    9. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    10. Pranab Bardhan & Dilip Mookherjee, 2006. "Decentralisation and Accountability in Infrastructure Delivery in Developing Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(508), pages 101-127, January.
    11. Thornton, John, 2007. "Fiscal decentralization and economic growth reconsidered," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 64-70, January.
    12. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416-416.
    13. Weingast, Barry R., 2014. "Second Generation Fiscal Federalism: Political Aspects of Decentralization and Economic Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 14-25.
    14. Hall, Peter A. & Gingerich, Daniel W., 2009. "Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities in the Political Economy: An Empirical Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 449-482, July.
    15. Nicholas Charron & Lewis Dijkstra & Victor Lapuente, 2014. "Regional Governance Matters: Quality of Government within European Union Member States," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 68-90, January.
    16. Kyriacou, Andreas P. & Roca-Sagalés, Oriol, 2011. "Fiscal decentralization and government quality in the OECD," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 191-193, June.
    17. Roger Congleton & Andreas Kyriacou & Jordi Bacaria, 2003. "A Theory of Menu Federalism: Decentralization by Political Agreement," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 167-190, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrea Filippetti & Giovanni Cerulli, 2018. "Are local public services better delivered in more autonomous regions? Evidence from European regions using a dose‐response approach," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(3), pages 801-826, August.
    2. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Santiago Lago-Peñas & Agnese Sacchi, 2017. "The Impact Of Fiscal Decentralization: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1095-1129, September.
    3. Choudhury, Atrayee & Sahu, Sohini, 2022. "Revisiting the nexus between fiscal decentralization and government size - The role of ethnic fragmentation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    4. Lessmann, Christian & Markwardt, Gunther, 2010. "One Size Fits All? Decentralization, Corruption, and the Monitoring of Bureaucrats," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 631-646, April.
    5. Nadia Fiorino & Emma Galli & Fabio Padovano, 2013. "Do fiscal decentralization and government fragmentation affect corruption in different ways? Evidence from a panel data analysis," Chapters, in: Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Challenge of Local Government Size, chapter 5, pages 121-147, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Nadia Fiorino & Emma Galli & Fabio Padovano, 2015. "How long does it take for government decentralization to affect corruption?," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 273-305, August.
    7. Keith Blackburn & Gareth Downing, 2015. "Deconcentration, Corruption and Economic Growth," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 209, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    8. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Lars P. Feld & Jan Schnellenbach, 2014. "Fiscal Federalism, Decentralization and Economic Growth: Survey and Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 4985, CESifo.
    9. Tristan Canare, 2021. "Decentralization and Development Outcomes: What Does the Empirical Literature Really Say?," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 237(2), pages 111-151, June.
    10. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Lars P. Feld & Jan Schnellenbach, 2016. "Fiscal Federalism, Decentralization, And Economic Growth: A Meta-Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(3), pages 1445-1463, July.
    11. Andrea Filippetti & Agnese Sacchi, 2016. "Decentralization and economic growth reconsidered: The role of regional authority," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1793-1824, December.
    12. Pierre Salmon, 2013. "Decentralization and growth: what if the cross-jurisdiction approach had met a dead end?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 87-107, June.
    13. Michele Cincera & Antonio Estache & Wolf Alexander, 2012. "Would Less Fiscal Decentralization Reduce Public Sector Size across Sectors in Europe ?," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2012-028, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Jin, Haizhen, 2023. "Effects of decentralization on firm performance: Evidence from Chinese county-level quasi-experiments," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    15. Asatryan, Zareh & Feld, Lars P., 2015. "Revisiting the link between growth and federalism: A Bayesian model averaging approach," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 772-781.
    16. Changwony, Frederick Kibon & Paterson, Audrey S., 2019. "Accounting practice, fiscal decentralization and corruption," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).
    17. Nils Droste & Claudia Becker & Irene Ring & Rui Santos, 2018. "Decentralization Effects in Ecological Fiscal Transfers: A Bayesian Structural Time Series Analysis for Portugal," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(4), pages 1027-1051, December.
    18. Burret, Heiko T. & Feld, Lars P. & Schaltegger, Christoph A., 2022. "Fiscal federalism and economic performance new evidence from Switzerland," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    19. Droste, Nils & Becker, Claudia & Ring, Irene & Santos, Rui, 2017. "Decentralization effects in ecological fiscal transfers: The case of Portugal," UFZ Discussion Papers 3/2017, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    20. Liangliang Liu, 2021. "Fiscal decentralization and the imbalance between consumption and investment in China," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(1), pages 1-17, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    quality of regional governments; Decentralization; European regions; dose-response approach.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
    • R1 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics
    • R5 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p367. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.