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Abstract
This article critically reviews the empirical literature on decentralization and its relationship with development outcomes. The analysis suggests that revenue decentralization and fiscal independence, or the ability of local governments to raise their own revenue rather than relying on transfers from the national government, are the decentralization types most positively associated with development outcomes. Expenditure decentralization has no clear trend. In terms of development outcomes, most of the studies reviewed found evidence that good governance is positively associated with decentralization; but the evidence is mixed on economic growth. Some suggestions were also made for future decentralization studies.
Keywords: Decentralization, Development, Literature Survey.
Este artículo revisa desde un punto de vista crítico la literatura empírica sobre descentralización y desarrollo. El análisis sugiere que los tipos de descentralización más positivamente asociados con los niveles de desarrollo son la descentralización de los ingresos y la independencia fiscal. Es decir, la capacidad de los gobiernos locales para recaudar sus propios ingresos, en lugar de depender de las transferencias del gobierno nacional, se asocia a niveles de desarrollo económico más elevados. Sin embargo, la descentralización del gasto no presenta una tendencia clara. En cuanto a los resultados en materia de desarrollo, la mayoría de los estudios revisados encontraron pruebas de que la buena gobernanza está positivamente asociada con la descentralización. Sin embargo, su relación con el crecimiento económico es contradictoria. También se plantean algunas sugerencias para futuros estudios sobre la descentralización.
Palabras clave: descentralización, desarrollo, revisión de la literatura.
1.Background and Objectives
In the past few decades, decentralization has been a common component of development strategies and public finance reform among developing countries (Rodriguez-Pose and Gill, 2003; Smoke, 2001; Dillinger, 1994). The primary argument for decentralization is that bringing public goods provision closer to its users can promote greater efficiency, better governance, and accountability (Faguet, 2009; Kubal, 2006; Shah, 2006). Because the local government has better information on the preferences of its constituents, it can better design public services to respond to local needs that are often different from those in other regions. This decentralization theorem, often originally attributed to Oates (1972), suggests that Received: December, 2019
Accepted: August, 2020
public goods provision by the local government is more efficient than that of the central government (Boadway and...