Compliance with national standards of decentralized public services: The case of preschool services in Albania

In the last few decades, many Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) engaged in processes of decentralization in which responsibilities of the national government are transferred to local government units (LGUs). Yet, it is still unclear under what circumstances LGUs in recently decentralized CEEC can deliver high‐quality public services. We put forward the argument that political, administrative, and financial factors related to characteristics of the LGU, and their implementation structure can explain the quality of public services, understood here as the compliance with standards set at central government level. We deduce a set of hypotheses which we test with the example of the public service of preschool education in Albania using generalized linear mixed‐effects models. We find that albeit fiscal factors are important, the relation between money and high‐quality public services is more complex than previously assumed. We find that private donations can undermine central government standards, and that requirements not involving financial costs are more likely implemented. Further, political, and administrative factors, although previously often neglected, play an important role. We find that outsourcing certain functions leads to higher service quality, and that urban areas provide higher quality services indicating that political actors need to focus on rural areas.