Does Government Decentralization Increase Policy Innovation?

Does Government Decentralization Increase Policy Innovation? PDF Author: Koleman S. Strumpf
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The conventional wisdom is that government decentralization promotes policy innovation because it allows for several simultaneous experiments by local governments. However, there is also a learning externality because successful policy experiments provide useful information to all governments. Local governments will ignore this externality but a central government should take it into account. This paper uses a social learning model to compare policy innovation under centralization and decentralization. Centralization leads to more policy innovation if the local governments are relatively homogeneous or large in number. However, decentralization may induce more policy innovation if there are a large number of possible experimental policies. This analysis suggests that the recent U.S. welfare reform may discourage future policy innovation.

Does Government Decentralization Increase Policy Innovation?

Does Government Decentralization Increase Policy Innovation? PDF Author: Koleman S. Strumpf
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The conventional wisdom is that government decentralization promotes policy innovation because it allows for several simultaneous experiments by local governments. However, there is also a learning externality because successful policy experiments provide useful information to all governments. Local governments will ignore this externality but a central government should take it into account. This paper uses a social learning model to compare policy innovation under centralization and decentralization. Centralization leads to more policy innovation if the local governments are relatively homogeneous or large in number. However, decentralization may induce more policy innovation if there are a large number of possible experimental policies. This analysis suggests that the recent U.S. welfare reform may discourage future policy innovation.

Government Structure and the Political Economy of Technological Innovation

Government Structure and the Political Economy of Technological Innovation PDF Author: Mark Zachary Taylor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Are decentralized states better at technological innovation than centralized states? Economic and political theorists, from Hayek to Mokyr, suggest that government decentralization offer advantages for innovators. Decentralized governments are widely seen as agile, competitive, and well structured to adapt to innovation's gale of creative destruction. Meanwhile, centralized states, even when democratic, are subject to capture by status-quo interest groups which use their influence to promote policies which ultimately restrict long-run technological change. Therefore decentralized government is increasingly perceived as a necessary institutional foundation for fostering long-run technological innovation. I test this theory using data on international patent activity, scientific publications, and high-technology exports.

Fiscal Decentralization and Local Finance in Developing Countries

Fiscal Decentralization and Local Finance in Developing Countries PDF Author: Roy Bahl
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1786435306
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
This book draws on experiences in developing countries to bridge the gap between the conventional textbook treatment of fiscal decentralization and the actual practice of subnational government finance. The extensive literature about the theory and practice is surveyed and longstanding problems and new questions are addressed. It focuses on the key choices that must be made in decentralizing, on how economic and political factors shape the choices that countries make, and on how, by paying more attention to the need for a more comprehensive approach and the critical connections between different components of decentralization reform, everyone involved might get more for their money.

Decentralizing Governance

Decentralizing Governance PDF Author: G. Shabbir Cheema
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815713908
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
A Brookings Institution Press and Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation publication The trend toward greater decentralization of governance activities, now accepted as commonplace in the West, has become a worldwide movement. This international development—largely a product of globalization and democratization—is clearly one of the key factors reshaping economic, political, and social conditions throughout the world. Rather than the top-down, centralized decisionmaking that characterized communist economies and Third World dictatorships in the twentieth century, today's world demands flexibility, adaptability, and the autonomy to bring those qualities to bear. In this thought-provoking book, the first in a new series on Innovations in Governance, experts in government and public management trace the evolution and performance of decentralization concepts, from the transfer of authority within government to the sharing of power, authority, and responsibilities among broader governance institutions. This movement is not limited to national government—it also affects subnational governments, NGOs, private corporations, and even civil associations. The contributors assess the emerging concepts of decentralization (e.g., devolution, empowerment, capacity building, and democratic governance). They detail the factors driving the movement, including political changes such as the fall of the Iron Curtain and the ascendance of democracy; economic factors such as globalization and outsourcing; and technological advances (e.g. increased information technology and electronic commerce). Their analysis covers many different contexts and regions. For example, William Ascher of Claremont McKenna College chronicles how decentralization concepts are playing out in natural resources policy, while Kadmeil Wekwete (United Nations) outlines the specific challenges to decentralizing governance in sub-Saharan Africa. In each case, contributors explore the objectives of a decentralizing strategy as well as the benefits and difficulties that will likely result.

Local Service Provision in Selected OECD Countries

Local Service Provision in Selected OECD Countries PDF Author: Ehtisham Ahmad
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
There is a widespread presumption that decentralization improves public service provision. This has led to policy prescriptions that are assiduously adhered to by countries and international. This paper reviews the recent evidence from OECD countries-which is seen to be inconclusive. This suggests the need for a careful design of programs that take into account the political economy constraints and incentives, as well as more systematic and thorough evaluations of outcomes.

Mission-Oriented Finance for Innovation

Mission-Oriented Finance for Innovation PDF Author: Mariana Mazzucato
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783484969
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
The role of the state in modern capitalism has gone beyond fixing market failures. Those regions and countries that have succeeded in achieving “smart” innovation-led growth have benefited from long-term visionary “mission-oriented” policies—from putting a man on the moon to tackling societal challenges such as climate change and the wellbeing of an ageing population. This book collects the experience of different types of mission-oriented public institutions around the world, together with thought-provoking chapters from leading economists. As the global debate on deficits and debt levels continues to roar, the book offers a challenge to the conventional narrative—asking what kinds of visionary fiscal policies we need to help promote "smart” innovation-led, inclusive, and sustainable growth.

Comparative Federalism

Comparative Federalism PDF Author: Thomas O. Hueglin
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442607246
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Inquiry, Second Edition is a uniquely comprehensive, analytic, and genuinely comparative introduction to the principles and practices, as well as the institutional compromises, of federalism. Hueglin and Fenna draw from their diverse research on federal systems to focus on four main models—America, Canada, Germany, and the European Union—but also to range widely over other cases. At the heart of the book is careful analysis of the relationship between constitutional design and amendment, fiscal relations, institutional structures, intergovernmental relations, and judicial review. Such analysis serves the dual role of helping the reader understand federalism and providing a comparative framework from which to assess the record of federal systems. The second edition has been extensively revised and updated, taking into account new developments in federal systems and incorporating insights from the growing body of literature in the field. It includes two new chapters, "Fiscal Federalism" and "The Limits of Federalism."

Going Local

Going Local PDF Author: Merilee S. Grindle
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400830354
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Many developing countries have a history of highly centralized governments. Since the late 1980s, a large number of these governments have introduced decentralization to increase democracy and improve services, especially in small communities far from capital cities. In Going Local, an unprecedented study of the effects of decentralization on thirty Mexican municipalities, Merilee Grindle describes how local governments respond when they are assigned new responsibilities and resources under decentralization policies. She explains why decentralization leads to better local governments in some cases--and why it fails to in others. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, Grindle examines data based on a random sample of Mexican municipalities--and ventures into town halls to follow public officials as they seek to manage a variety of tasks amid conflicting pressures and new expectations. Decentralization, she discovers, is a double-edged sword. While it allows public leaders to make significant reforms quickly, institutional weaknesses undermine the durability of change, and legacies of the past continue to affect how public problems are addressed. Citizens participate, but they are more successful at extracting resources from government than in holding local officials and agencies accountable for their actions. The benefits of decentralization regularly predicted by economists, political scientists, and management specialists are not inevitable, she argues. Rather, they are strongly influenced by the quality of local leadership and politics.

Decentralization in Developing Countries

Decentralization in Developing Countries PDF Author: Dennis A. Rondinelli
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780821302354
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description


Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice n. 1-3/2011

Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice n. 1-3/2011 PDF Author: AA. VV.
Publisher: Gangemi Editore spa
ISBN: 8849276990
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Contenuto/Contents Wallace E. Oates On the Development of the Theory of Fiscal Federalism: An Essay in the History of (Recent) Economic Thought Yong J. Yoon An Analogy: Symmetric Tragedies and Calculus of Consent Richard J. Cebula An Empirical Analysis of Determinants of Recent Federal Personal Income Tax Evasion in the U.S. Michelle B. Matthews – William F. Shughart II – Taylor P. Stevenson Political Arithmetic: New Evidence on the ‘Small-State Bias' in Federal Spending King Banaian – Örn B. Bodvarsson – Anton D. Lowenberg Determinants of Immigration Policy: An Empirical Study of US Legislative Voting Caterina Astarita Income Inequality and Crime: An Empirical Analysis of the Italian Case Alice M. Crisp – Franklin G. Mixon, Jr. Lincoln's Wartime Incumbency Network: Vertical Trust, Informal Payments, and the U.S. Presidential Election of 1864 Mouna M'Rad – Slaheddine Hallara The Impact of French Privatization on Firms' Performance Yilin Hou – Jason S. Seligman Local Sales Tax and Revenue Volatility Massimo Di Matteo Towards a Social Philosophy for the Twenty First Century: Critical Reflections on an Unpublished Essay by Richard Goodwin Michele G. Giuranno The Logic of Party Coalitions with Political Activism