Decentralization (Localization) and Corruption New Cross-Country Evidence

This paper attempts to improve the understanding and measurement of decentralization and its relationship with corruption in a worldwide context. This is done by presenting the conceptual underpinnings of such relationship as well as using superior and more defensible measures of both decentralizati...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Shah, Anwar
Other Authors: Ivanyna, Maksym
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2010
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 02121nmm a2200229 u 4500
001 EB002099717
003 EBX01000000000000001239807
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 221013 ||| eng
100 1 |a Shah, Anwar 
245 0 0 |a Decentralization (Localization) and Corruption  |h Elektronische Ressource  |b New Cross-Country Evidence  |c Shah, Anwar 
260 |a Washington, D.C  |b The World Bank  |c 2010 
300 |a 38 p 
700 1 |a Shah, Anwar 
700 1 |a Ivanyna, Maksym 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b WOBA  |a World Bank E-Library Archive 
028 5 0 |a 10.1596/1813-9450-5299 
856 4 0 |u http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/book/10.1596/1813-9450-5299  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a This paper attempts to improve the understanding and measurement of decentralization and its relationship with corruption in a worldwide context. This is done by presenting the conceptual underpinnings of such relationship as well as using superior and more defensible measures of both decentralization in its various dimensions as well as corruption for a sample of 182 countries. It is the first paper that treats various tiers of local governments (below the inter-mediate order of government) as the unit of comparative analysis. In contrast, previous analyses erroneously focused on subnational governments as the unit of analysis which yields invalid cross-country comparisons. By pursuing rigorous econometric analysis, the paper demonstrates that decentralization, when properly measured to mean moving government closer to people by empowering local governments, is shown to have significant negative effect on the incidence of corruption regardless of the choice of the estimation procedures or the measures of corruption used. In terms of various dimensions of decentralized local governance, political decentralization matters even when we control for fiscal decentralization. Further voice (political accountability) is empirically shown to be more important in combating corruption than exit options made available through competition among jurisdictions