Decentralization or Fiscal Autonomy? What Does Really Matter? Effects on Growth and Public Sector Size in European Transition Countries

Meloche, Jean-Philippe ; Vaillancourt, Francois ; Yilmaz, Serdar

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACTUAL COSTS;    AUTHORITY;    AUTONOMY;    BUSINESS TAXES;    CAPITAL GRANTS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3254
RP-ID  :  WPS3254

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines the importance offiscal autonomy in the analysis of decentralization. Usingnew data published by the OECD (2001 and 2002), itreproduces several indicators and proposes new measures ofdecentralization that take into consideration su-bnationalgovernments' autonomy over their revenues. Two modelsare reproduced: Davoodi and Zou (1998) on decentralizationand economic growth, and Oates (1985), on decentralizationand public sector size. Some evidence suggests that fiscalautonomy positively affects economic growth. Also, it seemsto affect the size of the state, but evidence on thisrelation is limited. Despite some statistical weaknesses,there are sufficient indications to argue that sub-nationalgovernments' fiscal autonomy should be a major concernwhen measuring decentralization.