Fiscal Decentralization And The Efficiency Of Public Service Delivery

This paper explores the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of public service delivery. It uses a stochastic frontier method to estimate time-varying efficiency coefficients and analyzes the impact of fiscal decentralization on those efficiency coefficients. The findings indicate that fiscal decentralization can improve the efficiency of public service delivery but only under specific conditions. First, the decentralization process requires adequate political and institutional environments. Second, a sufficient degree of expenditure decentralization seems necessary to obtain favorable outcomes. Third, decentralization of expenditure needs to be accompanied by sufficient decentralization of revenue. Absent those conditions, fiscal decentralization can worsen the efficiency of public service delivery.

This paper explores the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of public service delivery. It uses a stochastic frontier method to estimate time-varying efficiency coefficients and analyzes the impact of fiscal decentralization on those efficiency coefficients. The findings indicate that fiscal decentralization can improve the efficiency of public service delivery but only under specific conditions. First, the decentralization process requires adequate political and institutional environments. Second, a sufficient degree of expenditure decentralization seems necessary to obtain favorable outcomes. Third, decentralization of expenditure needs to be accompanied by sufficient decentralization of revenue. Absent those conditions, fiscal decentralization can worsen the efficiency of public service delivery. --Abstract.

This book examines the impacts of fiscal decentralization reforms on the efficiency of local governments in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. By offering a comparative perspective and by applying econometric methods and regression models, it analyses various reform trajectories and their effects on individual CEE countries. Furthermore, the book discusses input and output indicators for evaluating the efficiency of municipalities. Readers will learn about the common features of these countries, the impact of path dependence, and future prospects for decentralization reforms. In closing, the book discusses modern management and administration methods, opportunities for cooperation between municipalities, co-creative service delivery, and other measures that could improve the efficiency of public service provision.

This publication sets out a framework for analysing the performance of governments in developing countries, looking at the government as a whole and at local and municipal levels, and focusing on individual sectors that form the core of essential government services, such as health, education, welfare, waste disposal, and infrastructure. It draws lessons from performance measurement systems in a range of industrial countries to identify good practice around the world in improving public sector governance, combating corruption and making services work for poor people.

This paper explores the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of public service delivery. It uses a stochastic frontier method to estimate time-varying efficiency coefficients and analyzes the impact of fiscal decentralization on those efficiency coefficients. The findings indicate that fiscal decentralization can improve the efficiency of public service delivery but only under specific conditions. First, the decentralization process requires adequate political and institutional environments. Second, a sufficient degree of expenditure decentralization seems necessary to obtain favorable outcomes. Third, decentralization of expenditure needs to be accompanied by sufficient decentralization of revenue. Absent those conditions, fiscal decentralization can worsen the efficiency of public service delivery.

Shah discusses the revolution in public sector thinking that is transforming the public sectors of developing and transition countries. Countries are reconsidering their fiscal systems and searching for the right balance between central government control and decentralized governance. Political decentralization has advanced in most countries. Subnational expenditures in developing countries as a percentage of total public expenditures have also increased over the past two decades. However, the process is far from complete. In many countries, the central government is still involved in the delivery of local services, local governments have few sources of own-revenues, local governments have limited access to borrowing for capital projects, and the design of intergovernmental transfers does neither address regional fiscal equity nor convey appropriate incentives for fiscal discipline, improved service delivery performance, and accountability to citizens.Decentralized public governance can help realign public sector incentives through greater accountability to citizens, and attenuate the quot;democracy deficitquot; caused by globalization and the role of supranational institutions and regimes. However, this requires careful examination of the entire fiscal system. Elements of a comprehensive package of fiscal system reforms would include:- Clarifying roles of various levels of government in public service delivery.- Reassigning taxing responsibilities to ensure local revenue autonomy, accountability, and efficiency without endangering an internal common market.- Designing fiscal transfers to ensure regional fiscal equity and to create an enabling environment for innovative and competitive service delivery.- Facilitating responsible credit market access to subnational governments.- Designing institutional arrangements for intergovernmental fiscal relations to better coordinate policies.- Aligning operational capacity with the authorizing environment through the quot;accountability for resultsquot; framework of public management.This paper - a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Division, World Bank Institute - is part of a larger effort in the institute to disseminate ideas in strengthening responsive, responsible, and accountable public governance.

This paper reviews efforts to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of urban services delivery in developing countries. It argues that failures in urban service delivery are not merely the result of a lack of technical knowledge on the part of local government staff, but also reflect constraints and perverse incentives confronting local personnel and their political leadership, and these, in turn, are often the inadverten result of problems in the relationship between central and local government. The report views the spread of decentralization as a potentially fortuitous phenomenon. The decentralization now occurring is not a carefully designed sequence of reforms aimed at improving the efficiency of public service delivery ; it appears to be a reluctant and disorderly series of concessions by central governments attempting to maintain political stability. (Adapté du résumé de l'auteur).