Decentralization and the productive efficiency of government: Evidence from Swiss cantons

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Barankay, Iwan; Lockwood, Ben
• 署名单位: University of Warwick; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; University of Warwick
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2006.11.006
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 1197-1218
• 关键词: decentralization; productive efficiency; Local public goods

摘要

Advocates of fiscal decentralization argue that among other benefits, it can increase the efficiency of delivery of government services. This paper is one of the first to evaluate this claim empirically by looking at the association between expenditure decentralization and the productive efficiency of government using a data set of Swiss cantons. We first provide careful evidence that expenditure decentralization is a powerful proxy for legal local autonomy. Further panel regressions of Swiss cantons provide robust evidence that more decentralization is associated with higher educational attainment. We also show that these gains lead to no adverse effects across education types but that male students benefited more from educational decentralization closing, for the Swiss case, the gender education gap. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.