1-s2.0-S0147596717300215-main.pdf (1.22 MB)
Resource discovery and the politics of fiscal decentralization
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 05:17 authored by Sambit BhattacharyyaSambit Bhattacharyya, Louis Conradie, Rabah ArezkiIf the central government is a revenue maximizing Leviathan then resource discovery and democratization should have discernible impacts on the degree of fiscal decentralization. We systematically explore these effects by exploiting exogenous variation in giant oil and mineral discoveries and permanent democratization. Using a global dataset of 77 countries over the period 1970–2012 we find that resource discovery has very little effect on revenue decentralization but induces expenditure centralization. Oil discovery appears to be the main driver of centralization and not minerals. Resource discovery leads to centralization in locations which have not experienced permanent democratization. Tax and intergovernmental transfers respond most to resource discovery shocks and democratization whereas own source revenue, property tax, educational expenditure, and health expenditure do not seem to be affected. Higher resource rent leads to more centralization and the effect is moderated by democratization.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Journal of Comparative EconomicsISSN
0147-5967Publisher
ElsevierExternal DOI
Issue
2Volume
45Page range
366-382Department affiliated with
- Economics Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2017-02-23First Open Access (FOA) Date
2019-02-23First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2017-02-23Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedLicence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC