Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/78226 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Discussion Papers No. 2013-38
Publisher: 
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel
Abstract: 
This paper is intended to provide an assessment of the impact of the silent revolution (decentralization reforms) of the last three decades on moving governments closer to people to establish fair, accountable, incorruptible and responsive governance. To accomplish this, a unique data set is constructed for 182 countries by compiling data from a wide variety of sources to examine success toward decentralized decision making across the globe. An important feature of this data set is that, for comparative purposes, it measures government decision making at the local level rather than at the sub-national levels used in the existing literature. The data are used to rank countries on political, fiscal and administrative dimensions of decentralization and localization. These sub-indexes are aggregated and adjusted for heterogeneity to develop an overall ranking of countries on the closeness of their government to the people. The resulting index is associated with higher level of human development and lower level of corruption, and thus provides a useful explanation of the Arab Spring and other recent political movements and waves of dissatisfaction with governance around the world.
Subjects: 
localization
decentralization
home rule
fiscal autonomy
political autonomy
administrative autonomy
local governance
government accountability
trust in government
good governance
responsive
accountable and fair governance
JEL: 
H10
H11
H83
I31
O10
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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