IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbecrv/v34y2020isupplement_1ps52-s57..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Investment Choices by Local and Central Governments

Author

Listed:
  • Katrina Kosec
  • Tewodaj Mogues

Abstract

This paper examines the impacts of devolving authority for public resource allocation to local governments in a setting of limited electoral control. Such a setting differs from that assumed by seminal formal models of devolution, but describes many developing countries. This study presents a formal model of this setting and tests it using unique data from a natural experiment in rural Ethiopia whereby half of the country's regions were decentralized but not the other half. Employing a spatial regression discontinuity design, this article shows that decentralization strongly improved delivery of agricultural public services, which are of high priority to the central government. In contrast, it did not impact drinking water services, on which the central government places lower priority but citizens place high priority.

Suggested Citation

  • Katrina Kosec & Tewodaj Mogues, 2020. "Public Investment Choices by Local and Central Governments," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(Supplemen), pages 52-57.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:34:y:2020:i:supplement_1:p:s52-s57.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhz010
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922, January.
    2. Alessandro Olper & Jan Fałkowski & Johan Swinnen, 2014. "Political Reforms and Public Policy: Evidence from Agricultural and Food Policies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 21-47.
    3. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    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. Zodrow, George R, 2003. "Tax Competition and Tax Coordination in the European Union," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(6), pages 651-671, November.
    2. Stephen Billings & Thomas Thibodeau, 2011. "Intrametropolitan Decentralization: Is Government Structure Capitalized in Residential Property Values?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 416-450, May.
    3. Teresa Garcia-Milà & Therese J. McGuire, 2001. "Tax incentives and the city," Economics Working Papers 631, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Dec 2001.
    4. Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge & McNab, Robert M., 2003. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 1597-1616, September.
    5. Edoardo Di Porto & Vincent Merlin & Sonia Paty, 2013. "Cooperation among local governments to deliver public services : a "structural" bivariate response model with fixed effects and endogenous covariate," Working Papers halshs-00787600, HAL.
    6. Melle Marco C., 2014. "Eine europäische Bemessungsgrundlage für die Körperschaftsteuer? Konzeption und ordnungsökonomische Analyse / Conceptual design and constitutional economics analysis of a European tax base for corpora," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 65(1), pages 133-156, January.
    7. Lars P. Feld & Horst Zimmermann & Thomas Döring, 2003. "Föderalismus, Dezentralität und Wirtschaftswachstum," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 72(3), pages 361-377.
    8. Kumba Digdowiseiso, 2022. "Is Fiscal Decentralization Growth Enhancing? A Cross-Country Study in Developing Countries over the Period 1990–2014," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-17, March.
    9. George Crowley & Russell Sobel, 2011. "Does fiscal decentralization constrain Leviathan? New evidence from local property tax competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 5-30, October.
    10. Whitney Buser, 2011. "The impact of fiscal decentralization on economics performance in high-income OECD nations: an institutional approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 31-48, October.
    11. Alan P. Hamlin, 1991. "Decentralization, Competition and the Efficiency of Federalism," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 67(3), pages 193-204, September.
    12. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    13. Bordignon, Massimo & Cerniglia, Floriana & Revelli, Federico, 2004. "Yardstick competition in intergovernmental relationships: theory and empirical predictions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 325-333, June.
    14. Samuel Adams & Kingsley Agomor, 2020. "Decentralization, Partisan Politics, and National Development in Ghana," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 351-366, June.
    15. Rebecca Diamond, 2017. "Housing Supply Elasticity and Rent Extraction by State and Local Governments," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 74-111, February.
    16. Ligthart, J.E. & van Oudheusden, P., 2011. "In Government We Trust : The Role of Fiscal Decentralization," Other publications TiSEM 0ebb8e6e-0db7-4676-94bc-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Andreas P. Kyriacou & Oriol Roca-Sagalés, 2019. "Local Decentralization and the Quality of Public Services in Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(2), pages 755-776, September.
    18. Mogues, Tewodaj & Benin, Samuel, 2012. "Do External Grants to District Governments Discourage Own Revenue Generation? A Look at Local Public Finance Dynamics in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 1054-1067.
    19. Jaewoo Cho & Jae Hong Kim & Yonsu Kim, 2019. "Metropolitan governance structure and growth–inequality dynamics in the United States," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(3), pages 598-616, May.
    20. Thushyanthan Baskaran, 2010. "On the link between fiscal decentralization and public debt in OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 351-378, December.

    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:oup:wbecrv:v:34:y:2020:i:supplement_1:p:s52-s57.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    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.