Decentralization and political career concerns

Politicians' career paths often start at some subnational governments and end at the national one. Allocation of authorities among national and subnational governments affects (i) how tempting the prospects of taking national offices are, and hence how strong bureaucrats' political career...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of public economics 2017-01, Vol.145, p.201-210
Main Authors: Che, Jiahua, Chung, Kim-Sau, Lu, Yang K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Career concerns
Cycles
Decentralization
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Summary:Politicians' career paths often start at some subnational governments and end at the national one. Allocation of authorities among national and subnational governments affects (i) how tempting the prospects of taking national offices are, and hence how strong bureaucrats' political career concerns are, and (ii) whether the incentives generated by these political career concerns can be put into productive use at subnational governments. We illustrate this tradeoff in determining the optimal degree of decentralization using China as a case study. We also compare the equilibrium degree of decentralization in autocracy and in democracy. •We discuss the interaction between decentralization and political career concerns.•We point out a new tradeoff that determines the optimal degree of decentralization.•We illustrate our results using China as a case study.•We compare the equilibrium degree of decentralization in an autocracy and in a democracy.
ISSN:0047-2727
1879-2316
DOI:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2016.11.017