Political Decentralization, Economic Growth and Regional Disparities in the OECD

Ezcurra R. and Rodriguez-Pose A. Political decentralization, economic growth and regional disparities in the OECD, Regional Studies. Recent scholarly work has addressed whether decentralization affects economic growth and regional disparities, by typically resorting to fiscal decentralization, while disregarding political decentralization indices. This article covers this gap by investigating the association between different political decentralization indices with two measures of economic performance: changes in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and in territorial inequalities. The results suggest a lack of statistical relationship between political decentralization and economic growth, regardless of how political decentralization is measured. In the case of regional disparities, the results depend on the index used and range from the absence of a link to a positive association between both factors.