The Impact of Recentralization on Public Services
A Difference-in-Differences Analysis of the Abolition of Elected Councils in Vietnam
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3764552 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Edmund J Malesky (0000-0001-5737-9195, Duke University), Cuong Viet Nguyen (0000-0002-6803-3488, National Economics University), Anh Tran (0000-0002-0849-9155, Indiana University Bloomington) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 108 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 144-168 |
| Publication date | 2014-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0003055413000580 |
| OpenAlex | W1516939497 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 60 |
| References cited | 39 |
Comparative political economy offers a wealth of hypotheses connecting decentralization to improved public service delivery. In recent years, influential formal and experimental work has begun to question the underlying theory and empirical analyses of previous findings. At the same time, many countries have grown dissatisfied with the results of their decentralization efforts and have begun to reverse them. Vietnam is particularly intriguing because of the unique way in which it designed its recentralization, piloting a removal of elected people's councils in 99 districts across the country and stratifying the selection by region, type of province, and urban versus rural setting. We take advantage of the opportunity provided by this quasi experiment to test the core hypotheses regarding the decision to shift administrative and fiscal authority to local governments. We find that recentralization significantly improved public service delivery in areas important to central policy-makers, especially in transportation, healthcare, and communications
Business · Core (optical fiber · Decentralization · Economics · Empirical research · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Public service · Service (business · Service delivery framework · Test (biology · Work (physics · Engineering · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Marketing · Public Administration
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| Unique citing works | 60 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2026 (13) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 60 |