Abstract:
|
Trust in public institutions and public policies are generally perceived as a
precondition for economic recovery in times of recession. Recent empirical
evidence tends to find a positive link between decentralization and trust. But
our knowledge about whether decentralization – through increased trust –
improves the perception of the delivery and effectiveness of public policies
is still limited. In this paper we estimate the impact of fiscal and political
decentralization on the perception of the state of the education system and of
health services, by using the 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 waves of the
European social survey. The analysis of the views of 160,000 individuals in
31 European countries indicates that while the effect of fiscal
decentralization on the perception of the state of the health and education
system is limited, political decentralization clearly affects citizen’s
satisfaction with education and health delivery. The influence of political
decentralization, however, is highly contingent on whether we consider the
capacity of the local or regional government to exercise authority over its
citizens (self-rule) or to influence policy at the national level (shared-rule).
Keywords: Education, health, satisfaction, fiscal and political
decentralization, Europe.
JEL codes: H11, H77 |