Abstract
In this chapter local autonomy is treated as an independent variable. We want to know whether there is a causal link between the degree of autonomy and the performance of the different countries in terms of the quality of democracy, economic growth, corruption and happiness. The chapter starts with some theoretical remarks concerning the expected impact and shows that there are in fact positive relations between local autonomy and input as well as output-related aspects of local government. These links remain positive even when we control for the size of the municipalities and whether they belong to the group of former communist countries. Our conclusion, however, is a bit more cautious. It remains doubtful whether one can simply increase the autonomy of the municipalities to increase the performance of local government. This process is likely to be more complicated.
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- 1.
See http://www.democracybarometer.org/concept_en.html (consulted in 2018).
- 2.
See https://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview (consulted in 2018).
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Ladner, A. et al. (2019). Blessings of Local Autonomy? Does It Matter? For What? How?. In: Patterns of Local Autonomy in Europe. Governance and Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95642-8_13
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