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Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism

In this paper I investigate the optimal level of decentralization of tasks for the provision of a local public good. I enrich the well-known trade-off between internalization of spillovers (that favors centralization) and accountability (that favors decentralization) by considering that public goods...

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Autor Principal: Cortes, Darwin
Formato: Documento de trabajo (Working Paper)
Lenguaje:Español (Spanish)
Publicado: Universidad del Rosario 2010
Materias:
De gobiernos locales
Gobierno local::Modelos Econométricos
Descentralización en la gestión
Accountability
Multitask
Internalization of spillovers
Substitution
Acceso en línea:http://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/10827
id ir-10336-10827
recordtype dspace
spelling ir-10336-108272019-09-19T12:37:01Z Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism Cortes, Darwin De gobiernos locales Gobierno local::Modelos Econométricos Descentralización en la gestión Accountability Multitask Internalization of spillovers Substitution In this paper I investigate the optimal level of decentralization of tasks for the provision of a local public good. I enrich the well-known trade-off between internalization of spillovers (that favors centralization) and accountability (that favors decentralization) by considering that public goods are produced through multiple tasks. This adds an additional institutional setting, partial decentralization, to the classical choice between full decentralization and full centralization. The main results are that partial decentralization is optimal when both the variance of exogenous shocks to electorate’s utility is large and the electorate expects high performance from politicians. I also show that the optimal institutional setting depends on the degree of substitutability / complementarity between tasks. In particular, I show that a large degree of substitutability between tasks makes favoritism more likely, which increases the desirability of partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism. 2010-09 2015-09-18T16:59:21Z info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaper info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion Cortés Cortés, D. F. (2010). Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism. Bogotá: Universidad del Rosario, Facultad de Economía. http://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/10827 Universidad del Rosario, Facultad de Economía spa info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess application/pdf Universidad del Rosario u Facultad de Economía instname:Universidad del Rosario reponame:Repositorio Institucional EdocUR instname:Universidad del Rosario Alesina, A. and G. Tabellini (2004). Bureaucrats or politicians? CESifo Working paper 1130. Barankay, I. and B. Lockwood (2007). Decentralization and the productive efficiency of government: Evidence from swiss cantons. Journal of Public Economics 91, 1197– 1218. Barro, R. (1973). The control of politicians: an economic model. Public Choice 14, 19–42. Besley, T. (2005). Principled agents? the political economy of good government. Book manuscript. Besley, T. and S. Coate (2003). Centralized versus decentralized provision of local public goods: a political economy approach. Journal of Public Economics 87, 2611 – 37. Bordignon, M., L. Colombo, and U. Galmarini (2003). Fiscal federalism and endogenous lobbies’ formation. CESifo Working paper No. 1017. Ferejohn, J. (1986). Incumbent performance and electoral control. Public Choice 50, 5–26. Hindriks, J. and B. Lockwood (2004). Centralization and political accountability. Typescript. Holmstrom, B. and P. Milgrom (1991). Multitask principal-agent analyses: Incentive contracts, asset ownership, and job design. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 7, 24 – 52. Lockwood, B. (2002). Distributive politics and the costs of centralization. Review of Economic Studies 69(2), 313 – 338. OECD (1998). Education at a glance: Oecd indicators. Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Padro i Miquel, G. (2004). Multitask political agency. Working paper. Persson, T. and G. Tabellini (2000). Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy. MIT press. Seabright, P. (1996). Accountability and decentralisation in government: an incomplete contracts model. European Economic Review 40(1), 61–89.
institution EdocUR - Universidad del Rosario
collection DSpace
language Español (Spanish)
topic De gobiernos locales
Gobierno local::Modelos Econométricos
Descentralización en la gestión
Accountability
Multitask
Internalization of spillovers
Substitution
spellingShingle De gobiernos locales
Gobierno local::Modelos Econométricos
Descentralización en la gestión
Accountability
Multitask
Internalization of spillovers
Substitution
Cortes, Darwin
Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism
description In this paper I investigate the optimal level of decentralization of tasks for the provision of a local public good. I enrich the well-known trade-off between internalization of spillovers (that favors centralization) and accountability (that favors decentralization) by considering that public goods are produced through multiple tasks. This adds an additional institutional setting, partial decentralization, to the classical choice between full decentralization and full centralization. The main results are that partial decentralization is optimal when both the variance of exogenous shocks to electorate’s utility is large and the electorate expects high performance from politicians. I also show that the optimal institutional setting depends on the degree of substitutability / complementarity between tasks. In particular, I show that a large degree of substitutability between tasks makes favoritism more likely, which increases the desirability of partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism.
format Documento de trabajo (Working Paper)
author Cortes, Darwin
author_facet Cortes, Darwin
author_sort Cortes, Darwin
title Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism
title_short Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism
title_full Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism
title_fullStr Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism
title_full_unstemmed Partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism
title_sort partial decentralization as a safeguard against favoritism
publisher Universidad del Rosario
publishDate 2010
url http://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/10827
_version_ 1645140908049432576
score 12,131701

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