View Research by Author - Serdar Yilmaz

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The public sector in developing and transition countries must function more effectively and efficiently in pursuit of development and poverty reduction ambitions. This cannot be done without considering the critical role of the local public sector, since most (pro-poor) public services are delivered at the local level. This paper proposes a comparative decentralization assessment framework which guides a rapid assessment of a country's local public sector, including its political-administrative structures, its system of intergovernmental relations and the financing and functioning of the country’s decentralized local governments.

The typical post-Bretton Woods era development approach that put much emphasis on central government-led development efforts has changed dramatically, and local governments have now clearly emerged as players in development policy. Now, the thinking about what is important to achieve development objectives is changing and many countries around the world are now pursuing fiscal decentralization reforms. Within this context a number of studies attempted to quantify the impact of decentralization by relating some measure of decentralization to the economic outcomes of fiscal stability, economic growth, and public sector size. However, decentralization is surprisingly difficult to measure.

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