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Do Fiscal and Political Decentralization Raise Students' Performance? A Cross-Country Analysis

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  • Diaz-Serrano, Luis

    (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)

  • Meix-Llop, Enric

    (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)

Abstract

The low quality of education is a persistent problem in many developed countries. Parallel to in the last decades exists a tendency towards decentralization in many developed and developing countries. Using micro data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) referred to 22 countries, we test whether there exists an impact of fiscal and political decentralization on student performance in the areas of mathematics, reading skills and science. We observe that fiscal decentralization exerts an unequivocal positive effect on students' outcomes in all areas, while the effect of political decentralization is more ambiguous. On the one hand, the capacity of the subnational governments to rule on its region has a positive effect on students' performance in mathematics. On the other hand, the capacity to influence the country as a whole has a negative impact on mathematics achievement. As a general result, we observe that students' performance in Mathematics is more sensible to these exogenous variations than in Sciences and reading skills.

Suggested Citation

  • Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Meix-Llop, Enric, 2012. "Do Fiscal and Political Decentralization Raise Students' Performance? A Cross-Country Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 6722, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6722
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    Cited by:

    1. Paula Salinas, 2014. "The effect of decentralization on educational outcomes: real autonomy matters!," Working Papers 2014/25, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    2. Leonardo Letelier S & Hector Ormeño C, 2018. "Education and fiscal decentralization. The case of municipal education in Chile," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(8), pages 1499-1521, December.
    3. Buerger, Christian & Lincove, Jane Arnold & Mata, Catherine, 2023. "How context shapes the relationship between school autonomy and test-scores. An explanatory analysis using PISA 2015," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    4. Luis Diaz-Serrano & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2015. "Decentralization and the Welfare State: What Do Citizens Perceive?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 120(2), pages 411-435, January.
    5. Taiwo, Kayode, 2020. "The effect of decentralisation on access to sanitation and water services: An empirical test using international data," MPRA Paper 105426, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Paula Salinas, 2014. "The effect of decentralization on educational outcomes: real autonomy matters!," Working Papers 2014/25, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    7. Jeong, Dong Wook & Lee, Ho Jun & Cho, Sung Kyung, 2017. "Education decentralization, school resources, and student outcomes in Korea," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 12-27.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    school outcomes; PISA; fiscal decentralization; political decentralization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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