Local Public Goods Research Articles

Military dictatorship and the provision of public goods

ABSTRACT Non-democracies, particularly dictatorships, provide local public goods differently when compared to democracies. We use the Partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947 to examine how similar ethnic groups living in similar agro-climatic conditions obtain substantially different configurations of public goods when exposed to different governance regimes. Our methodology draws upon the shifts in the central regime in Pakistan, between popularly elected governments and military dictatorships while using India as a benchmark, which had democratic governments throughout. We create and utilize a novel dataset for our district-level analyses from various census rounds in India and Pakistan. Our regression results consistently show that there is a significant under-provision of various public goods under dictatorships, while controlling for a host of time-varying local factors. Our results survive a battery of robustness checks and are particularly, not driven by large cities, or specific provinces.

Love Thy (Elected) Neighbor? Residential Segregation, Political Representation, and Local Public Goods

Previous articleNext article No AccessLove Thy (Elected) Neighbor? Residential Segregation, Political Representation and Local Public GoodsOskari Harjunen, Tuukka Saarimaa, and Janne TukiainenOskari Harjunen Search for more articles by this author , Tuukka Saarimaa Search for more articles by this author , and Janne Tukiainen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Just Accepted Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723983 Views: 14Total views on this site HistoryAccepted October 14, 2022 © 2023 Southern Political Science Association. All Rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

A global map of amenities: Public goods, ethnic divisions and decentralization

I analyze the effects of ethnic divisions on the provision of public goods in countries throughout the world. Using OpenStreetMap data, I construct a new, global dataset that pinpoints locations of public amenities, such as schools, hospitals, and libraries. I devise two new proxies to address the variability in the completeness of such data. I find that more autonomous subnational regions with a high degree of ethnic fractionalization provide significantly fewer productive public goods. Therefore, decentralization can decrease the provision of local public goods in areas characterized by higher levels of ethnic heterogeneity than those that prevail nationwide.

Public spending and economies of scale in partial fiscal decentralized governments: The case of Chile

This article evaluates economies of scale in local public spending in Chile, emphasizing the country's geographical features and high fiscal heterogeneity. We leverage balanced panel data for ten years and 307 municipalities in order to estimate the population level at which a reduction in the average cost of local public goods provision occurs and to differentiate between levels of market potential. We follow a theoretical model of cost efficiency that considers spatial interactions and spillover effects among neighboring jurisdictions. Our findings suggest that Chilean municipalities reach an optimum population level at around 700,000 inhabitants, which is high considering that only two cities qualify. When differentiating for levels of economies of scale according to levels of market potential, municipalities with a low potential reach their optimum at around 28,000 inhabitants, those with a medium potential reach it at approximately 124,000, and those with a high potential reach it at approximately 680,000.

How the Green Architecture of the 2023–2027 Common Agricultural Policy could have been greener

A new 5-year Common Agricultural Policy has been in place since January 2023. Like its predecessors, this new policy will fail to deliver significant climatic and environmental benefits. We show how the Green Architecture of the policy relying on the three instruments of conditionality, eco-schemes, and agri-environment and climate measures could have been used more consistently and effectively. Our proposals are based on core principles of public economics and fiscal federalism as well as on research results in agronomy and ecology. Conditionality criteria are the minimal requirements that every agricultural producer must meet. Farmers should be rewarded for efforts that go beyond these basic requirements through eco-schemes for global public goods complemented by agri-environment and climate measures centred on local public goods. Eco-schemes should cover the whole agricultural area by targeting permanent grasslands, crop diversification, and green cover and non-productive agro-ecological infrastructures. We discuss trade-offs that our proposals could generate.

Natural Resource Rents, Local Taxes, and Government Performance: Evidence from Colombia

Abstract I compare the impact of local tax revenue and royalties from the extraction of natural resources on governance in Colombian municipalities, leveraging plausibly exogenous variation from cadastral updates and fluctuations in the world price of oil. Higher tax revenue has a larger effect on local public goods in the areas of education, health, and water than a same-sized increase in oil royalties, despite earmarking of royalties for spending in these areas. Higher tax revenue also reduces the probability of a disciplinary prosecution against the municipal mayor, while the opposite is true for royalties, particularly for misbehavior related to public spending.

Evidence on economies of scale in local public service provision: A meta‐analysis

AbstractThe standard theory of optimal jurisdictional size hinges on the existence of economies of scale in the provision of local public goods and services. However, despite its relevance for forced local amalgamation programs and related policies, the empirical evidence on the existence of such economies of scale remains elusive. The main goal of this paper is to produce an updated and comprehensive quantitative review of the existence of economies of scale in the provision of local public goods using a meta‐analysis approach to systematize the wide range of empirical approaches and modeling frameworks found in the previous literature. Our analysis confirms the presence of moderately increasing to constant returns to scale in the provision of local services with no reduction in the average costs of production in the delivery of most local public services beyond a certain, modest jurisdictional size, which many studies have estimated at 10,000 residents. Also, the potential for economies of scale differs at least across three traditional services: education, water and sanitation, and garbage collection, being highest for education and lowest for garbage collection. Our analysis also offers guidelines for future empirical research in this area. Physical output and production cost data should be used, together with translog specifications for the modeling of cost functions. Last, we find evidence that the determinants of output cost elasticity include bidirectional publication bias and population density but do not include the presence or absence of modern “lean” production technologies or the (perceived) capital intensity of the sector, contrary to conventional wisdom. These findings have significant policy implications for countries considering jurisdictional consolidation programs.

Historical Inequality at the Grassroots: Local Public Goods in an Indian District, 1905–2011

How do historical inequalities influence modern public goods provision? This paper analyses a new panel dataset of local public goods provision in a single North Indian district with observations at the village-decade level going back to 1905 and detailed information on colonial land tenure institutions and demographics. The presence of large colonial landowners is positively associated with rural public goods provision when the landlord was resident in the early 20th century and has a null effect when the landlord was an absentee. Villages inhabited or owned by upper castes had an advantage in the colonial and immediate post-independence eras, but not afterward. The results suggest that within unequal societies, economic and status inequalities can have positive effects on public goods provision when they link elites to extralocal decision-makers.

Long-Run Effects of Aid: Forecasts and Evidence from Sierra Leone

Abstract We evaluate the long-run effects of a decentralised approach to economic development called community-driven development—a prominent strategy for delivering foreign aid—by revisiting a randomised community-driven development program in Sierra Leone 11 years after launch. We estimate large persistent gains in local public goods and market activity, and modest positive effects on institutions. There is suggestive evidence that community-driven development may have slightly improved the communities’ response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic. We compare estimates to the forecasts of experts from Sierra Leone and abroad, working in policy and academia, and find that local policymakers are overly optimistic about the effectiveness of community-driven development.

National expenditures on local amenities

We develop a framework for estimating Americans' implicit expenditures on spatially varying nonmarket amenities. We focus on location-specific factors that affect the quality of life but are not formally traded. Examples include climate, geography, pollution, local public goods, and transportation infrastructure. Households pay for residential access to these amenities indirectly, through housing prices, wages and property taxes. We construct a database of 75 amenities, match it to 5 million households' location choices, and use hedonic methods to estimate their total amenity expenditures. Our benchmark estimate for the year 2000 is $562 billion--equivalent to 8% of Americans’ personal consumption expenditures.

Heterogeneous Capitalization of Local Public Goods Induced by Federal Fiscal Policy

Heterogeneous Capitalization of Local Public Goods Induced by Federal Fiscal Policy

Local Public Good Equilibrium

Local Public Good Equilibrium

Pay for the Privilege: Does a Global Club Good Opportunity Ruin Local Public Good Provision?

Pay for the Privilege: Does a Global Club Good Opportunity Ruin Local Public Good Provision?

Local Public Good Equilibrium and Share Equilibrium

Local Public Good Equilibrium and Share Equilibrium

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Technical Efficiency in the Provision of Local Public Goods: The Case of Chilean Mining Municipalities

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Technical Efficiency in the Provision of Local Public Goods: The Case of Chilean Mining Municipalities

생태적 산지전용을 활용한 산림복지시설 조성 방안 연구 : 대전 나눔숲체험원 조성계획을 중심으로

Purpose: The desire to experience forests is increasing as urban residents have more leisure time due to increased income, the introduction of a five-day workweek, and economic leeway. The forms for forest welfare services are operated in the form of forest experience centers, forest kindergartens, forest campgrounds, and forest leisure sports facilities, and are created for the purpose of forest education and healing while serving as a local public goods. Method: This study will conduct a literature search within the last 5 years and research and organize terms and design guidelines through theoretical review. In addition, case studies are conducted, and the design content of the Daejeon Sharing Forest Experience Center is analyzed. Result: This study analyzes the “Daejeon Sharing Forest Experience Center Natural Recreation Forest Creation Plan” to which the concept of ecological mountain region conversion is applied, and proposes an alternative to the conservation of the forest environment and the space plan coexisting with humans in the creation of space using forest resources.

From Fiscal Decentralisation to Economic Growt The Role of Complementary Institutions

Decentralisation is theoretically expected to be a platform towards efficient provision of the local public goods and services. This is expected to boost economic growth due to efficient and effective utilisation of scarce fiscal resources. Nevertheless, the existing empirical studies present mixed results on this expected positive relationship among decentralisation and economic growth. Recently, the theories of fiscal federalism have also pressed upon the enabling environment for effective decentralisation; talking explicitly, an enabling institutional setup is required. The current study explores the complementarity between fiscal decentralisation and other institutions for stimulating growth and the study uses rich crosscountry panel data for the period 1984 to 2012, covering both the developing and developed countries of the world. The results suggest that positive relationship exist between fiscal decentralisation and economic growth for the developed countries while evidence was not found in the case of developing countries. Further, it was found that fiscal decentralisation and quality institutions are complementary for economic growth. JEL Classification: C22, H11, H77, O40 Keywords: Fiscal Decentralisation, Institutions, Economic Growth, Panel Data, unequally spaced panel data

Majority choice of taxation and redistribution in a federation

To study redistribution and taxation in a federation, we provide a model with a central government and multiple local governments, the former with power to levy an income tax for redistribution, and the latter choosing a local income tax, property tax, lump-sum tax or subsidy, and a local public good. Policy is set by majority choice at each tier of government by households that differ by income and by ability to move among local jurisdictions. We provide sufficient conditions for existence of equilibrium and examine its properties. Central findings are federal income distribution, little local redistribution, and local preference for property taxation over income taxation to fund local public goods.

Electoral outcomes and local public goods provision with ex post interregional transfer

Electoral outcomes and local public goods provision with ex post interregional transfer

Fiscal Decentralization and Natural Disaster Relief in China

This paper analyzes the impact of fiscal decentralization on the level of government relief for natural disasters using 30 provincial-level data from 1997 to 2017 in China. The results show that fiscal decentralization positively impacts local government expenditure on natural disaster relief. Although it is different from the existing conclusion that fiscal decentralization inhibits the supply of local non-economic public goods, this conclusion can be explained by the literature on disaster prevention and control; the incentive of decentralization to increase government revenue increases the opportunity cost of disaster prevention and control investment, which makes the pre-disaster funds insufficient, and the post-disaster financial expenditure of natural disaster relief increase accordingly.