Bulletin n. 3/2006
December 2006
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Treisman D.
    Explaining Fiscal Decentralisation: Geography, Colonial History, Economic Development and Political Institutions
    in Commonwealth and Comparative Politics , Vol. 44 n. 3 ,  2006 ,  289 - 325
    Why are some countries more fiscally decentralised than others? Scholars have attributed such differences to geographical, cultural, institutional and economic factors. Using a dataset of 66 countries, I test various hypotheses. The results suggest territorially larger-but not necessarily more populous-countries are more fiscally decentralised. Former colonies of Spain or Portugal are more centralised, while former Soviet states are particularly decentralised. Economic development leads to greater expenditure decentralisation, but affects revenue decentralisation less, rendering local governments in richer countries more dependent on central transfers. Federal states are more decentralised, in part because federalism is more common among more developed countries. Ethnolinguistic divisions did not correlate with decentralisation. Neither the level nor duration of democracy had any clear effect. Longitudinal analysis suggested democratisation is associated with a significant but tiny increase in decentralisation.
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