TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ebinger, Falk
A1  - Richter, Philipp
T1  - Decentralizing for performance? A quantitative assessment of functional reforms in the German Lander
T2  - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration
N2  - In the last 10 years, the governments of most of the German Länder initiated administrative reforms. All of these ventures included the municipalization of substantial sets of tasks. As elsewhere, governments argue that service delivery by communes is more cost-efficient, effective and responsive. Empirical evidence to back these claims is inconsistent at best: a considerable number of case studies cast doubt on unconditionally positive appraisals. Decentralization effects seem to vary depending on the performance dimension and task considered. However, questions of generalizability arise as these findings have not yet been backed by more ‘objective’ archival data. We provide empirical evidence on decentralization effects for two different policy fields based on two studies. Thereby, the article presents alternative avenues for research on decentralization effects and matches the theoretical expectations on decentralization effects with more robust results. The analysis confirms that overly positive assertions concerning decentralization effects are only partially warranted. As previous case studies suggested, effects have to be looked at in a much more differentiated way, including starting conditions and distinguishing between the various relevant performance dimensions and policy fields.
KW  - decentralization
KW  - de-concentration
KW  - federalism
KW  - local government
KW  - performance measurement
KW  - public service delivery
KW  - social and environmental administration
Y1  - 2016
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/45289
SN  - 0020-8523
SN  - 1461-7226
VL  - 82
SP  - 291
EP  - 314
PB  - Sage Publ.
CY  - London
ER  -