تمرکز زدایی محلی و رشد اقتصادی محلی : بررسی مقطعی در مناطق شهری ایالات متحده

This paper builds on the growing empirical literature that explores the relationship between government structure and economic growth. It uses a new data set of 314 US metropolitan areas to examine the relationship between local decentralization and local economic growth. The results indicate a negative relationship between the central-city share of metro area population and economic growth and a positive relationship between both the number of municipalities per 100,000 residents and the number of counties per 100,000 residents and economic growth. Those findings provide support for the hypothesis that decentralization enhances economic growth.

Decentralization is increasingly seen as a tool to promote economic development. As Oates [14] explained, “[t]he basic economic case for fiscal decentralization is the enhancement of economic efficiency: the provision of local outputs that are differentiated accordingto local tastes and circumstances results in higher levels of social welfare than centrally determined and more uniform levels of outputs across all jurisdictions.” There are two primary mechanisms involved here. The first is related to Hayek’s [8] knowledge problem, which states that the wide dispersion of knowledge dooms central planning to failure.1 Decentralized authorities are much better equipped to provide the economically efficient quantity and quality of public goods. They are in a better position to be responsive to variations in local demand. The second mechanism is related to the idea of government as monopolist. As Brennan and Buchanan [4] explained, “The potential for fiscal exploitation varies inversely with the number of competing governmental units in the inclusive territory.” More recent work on “market-preserving federalism” echoes this theme. “The fundamental political dilemma of an economic system is that a state strong enough to protect private markets is strong enough to confiscate the wealth of its citizens” (Weingast [21]). Increased competition between individual governments can limit government’s ability to extract monopoly rents, thereby enhancing economic efficiency, and thus economic growth

Decentralization is increasingly seen as a tool to promote economic development. Using a new data set, this paper has provided the first empirical test of the relationship between decentralization and economic growth that examines all US metropolitan areas (for which comparable historical data were available). The results provide support for the theory that decentralization increases economic growth. Examining metro areas in the same nation rather than countries themselves enables us to avoid the problems associated with some previous work that used data from a set of widely disparate countries. It also allows for a much larger sample size. The relationship between the structure of local government and economic growth has direct relevance to contemporary policy debates. For example, individuals in Staten Island, NY and San Fernando Valley, CA—sizable communities within our nation’s two largest metro areas (New York and Los Angeles)—have recently expressed their dissatisfaction with the quality of their local government by supporting efforts to detach from their central city and form new independent jurisdictions. In contrast, efforts to form consolidated local