TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP: INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTS ON DEBT AND GRANTS AT THE ENGLISH AND GERMAN LOCAL LEVEL

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: De Widt, Dennis
• 署名单位: University of Exeter
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3298
• DOI: 10.1111/padm.12251
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 664-684
• 关键词: POLITICAL-ECONOMY; flypaper

摘要

This article investigates the impact of institutional factors on the relationship between grant funding and local debt in England and Germany. Using a panel dataset covering the period 2005-12, the research identifies a positive relationship between grants and local debt. The positive relationship between grants and debt is reduced due to the impact of political and administrative variables. The findings demonstrate three shortcomings of the current literature. First, in contrast to the dominant portrayal of German local administration as predominantly legalistic, partisan dynamics affect the allocation of grants to the German local level. Second, institutional variables operate differently depending upon grant type, providing a rationale against the scholarly practice of using aggregate grants. Third, grant mechanisms provide a promising key to unlock institutional dynamics in systems of multilevel governance, but only when scholars integrate institutional differences more explicitly in their research design than hitherto accounted for by political economy.