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The Labour manifesto in this year's election implied a radical restructuring of the UK state, the way in which England is governed and in relations across the United Kingdom. The aim of making English devolution the ‘default option’ is set against fifty years of unsuccessful and partial devolution initiatives which have failed to reverse the accretion of power in the central UK state. Centralisation can be seen as the consequence of an Anglocentric constitutionalism which vests power in the centre, underpins England's fragmented departmental governance and where accountability mechanisms flow to HM Treasury. Labour's success will reflect its willingness to challenge these constitutional assumptions, which are deeply embedded in the culture, practice and structures of Westminster and Whitehall. Successful devolution will require breaking the chains of accountability that tie local spending decisions to the centre and placing devolved English local government on a stronger constitutional basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An effective evaluation of the factors affecting technological innovation efficiency (TIE) at the system level is an important focus in promoting high-quality economic development. Previous studies are extensively concerned with the relationship between fiscal decentralisation and TIE in recent years, but little attention has been paid to whether and how fiscal decentralisation affects TIE systematically from the perspective of efficiency decomposition. Using China's panel data at the province level from 1998 to 2018, we explore this question by decomposing the TIE into scale efficiency and pure technical efficiency. Findings demonstrate that fiscal decentralisation has a positive and significant influence on TIE and scale efficiency, but has no significant influence on pure technical efficiency. The influences of fiscal decentralisation on TIE and its decomposition efficiency have evident regional heterogeneity. Fiscal decentralisation can improve TIE and scale efficiency by increasing fiscal expenditure on science and technology. These findings may aid policymakers in reasonably designing future innovation policies and the next-stage reform package. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the recent pandemic, governments used digital video technologies to facilitate social distancing during political meetings. In addition to enabling social distancing, a theoretical advantage of virtual political governance is that it has the potential to mitigate the hierarchical administrative relationship between capitals and regions and the differences in real estate prices and wealth that often follows from such hierarchical structures. However, hardly any governments are currently planning a long‐term transition to work‐from‐home digital governance. On the contrary, several countries are doubling down on the centralization model of government by building new capitals in new locations. This article proposes that in a time of digital alternatives, physically centralized "capitals" could be considered examples of bad equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the impact of Chinese fiscal decentralization on public service satisfaction using the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data from 2012 to 2020. The findings reveal that fiscal decentralization has a significantly positive effect on public service satisfaction in China. This result remains robust when subjected to various tests. Moreover, this study finds that the enhancement of public service satisfaction is more pronounced in the eastern regions, compared to the central and western regions. Additionally, this study suggests that both economic pressure and corruption have a negative moderating effect on the promotion of fiscal decentralization on public service satisfaction, while marketization has a positive moderating effect. These findings provide a deeper understanding of the factors that promote public service satisfaction in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of regional inequality has gained prominence during the era of progress, driven by the goal of promoting equitable development and enhancing the well-being of all segments of society. Papua Province is an integral part of Indonesia, and confronts intricate hurdles in addressing regional inequality. In response to these hurdles, special autonomy status and fiscal decentralization were implemented to boost regional autonomy. This study aims to scrutinize the impact of special autonomy and fiscal decentralization on regional inequality within Papua Province. The dataset used in the study spans from 2011 to 2021 and has been sourced from the Central Bureau of Statistics for Papua Province and the Directorate General of Fiscal Balance under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia. Multiple linear regression analysis was applied and the analytical results underscore that granting special autonomy status has exerted a noteworthy influence in diminishing regional inequality within Papua Province. Nevertheless, an unexpected finding is that fiscal decentralization has not substantially curtailed regional inequality within the region. These revelations provide a comprehensive overview of the roles played by fiscal decentralization and special autonomy in endeavors to alleviate regional inequality in Papua Province. The implications of these findings lay the groundwork for policymaking and developmental planning that foster inclusivity and sustainable progress within the Province of Papua. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of digital technology, it is of great significance to make good use of digital technology to accelerate the green transformation of production and lifestyle and promote the ecological civilization construction (ECC). This study first analyzes the impact mechanism of digital technology on ECC. Secondly, this study constructs evaluation index systems and measures the level of digital technology and ECC in 31 provinces of China, from 2011 to 2022. Thirdly, using a two-way fixed effect model, spatial spillover effect model, and threshold effect model, this study explores the promoting effect of digital technology on ECC. The main research conclusions include the following: (1) digital technology significantly promotes ECC, and regional heterogeneity exists in the promoting effect, manifested as western > central > eastern. (2) The promoting effect of digital technology on ECC has a significant spatial spillover effect. (3) When the three threshold variables of industrial structure, education level, and R&D investment cross the threshold value, the promoting effect of digital technology is significantly enhanced. However, when fiscal decentralization crosses the threshold value, the promoting effect of digital technology is significantly weakened. Based on the above research conclusions, this study identifies some policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the formation of modern Japanese national consciousness, with a focus on the case of Ryūkyū-Okinawa. It discusses the role of the central government in shaping national consciousness, as well as the opposition and antagonism between government intentions and citizen consciousness. The article also explores the unique relationship between the center and periphery, particularly the implementation of nationally uniform legislation in Okinawa. The annexation of Okinawa into modern Japan had a significant impact on both Japan's trajectory and the unification of Okinawa, although it did not always align with the government's intentions. The article also discusses the historical background and perspectives of Yamagata Aritomo, a key figure in the government and military, who visited Okinawa and influenced government policies. [Extracted from the article]

One possible way to achieve environmental sustainability is by addressing the issue of rising CO2 emissions, which significantly cause climate change by intensifying the greenhouse gas effect. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which substantially contributes to global CO2 emissions, necessitates a paradigm shift towards using clean energy sources and promoting green innovations to ensure environmental sustainability. Thus, this study aims to inspect the role of renewable energy use, green technology innovation, political stability, and fiscal decentralization in attaining environmental sustainability by limiting CO2 emissions for seven OECD economies from 2000 to 2019. This study has employed the 'Cross-Sectional Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag and Augmented Mean Group Estimator' for robust empirical analysis. The results indicate that renewable energy use, political stability, and fiscal decentralization can mitigate CO2 emissions and ensure environmental sustainability in OECD economies. In contrast, green technology innovation exhibits an insignificant effect on CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the moderation effects of fiscal decentralization and political stability exhibit a negative relationship with CO2 emissions. Notably, this study advises OECD nations to encourage regional cooperation to ensure political stability and devolution of fiscal powers to promote green innovation and renewable energy use to achieve sustainable goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-quality development is the primary task of comprehensively building a socialist, modern country, as well as the primary task of building urban agglomerations in China. Based on the five development concepts, this paper used the entropy method to measure the High Quality Development Index (HQDI) of the five major urban agglomerations. The results showed that the HQDI of the five major urban agglomerations shows a fluctuating upward trend. First, using the Dagum Gini coefficient to explore the sources of HQDI development differences in urban agglomerations, we found that the main source of HQDI differences in urban agglomerations was interregional differences, while intra-regional differences were not important. Second, kernel density estimation was used to test the dynamic evolution trend of HQDI within urban agglomerations. There was a polarisation phenomenon in the HQDI of urban agglomerations, such as the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration and the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration. But overall, the degree of imbalance had decreased. Third, using geographic detectors to examine the driving factors of HQDI in urban agglomerations, we found that the main driving forces for improving HQDI in urban agglomerations were economic growth, artificial intelligence technology and fiscal decentralisation. All the interaction factors had greater explanatory power for the spatial differentiation of HQDI, which can be divided into two types: two-factor improvement and non-linear improvement. This study is conducive to improving and enriching the theoretical system for evaluating the high quality development of urban agglomerations, and provides policy references for promoting the high quality development of urban agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study aims to analyse how financial ratios such as the independence ratio, effectiveness ratio, efficiency ratio, fiscal decentralisation ratio, dependency ratio, and compatibility ratio affect economic growth, directly or indirectly, through capital expenditure as a mediating factor. This research used a quantitative approach; purposive sampling was conducted, and path analysis was applied to explore the relationships between variables. The results show that self-reliance, effectiveness, efficiency, fiscal decentralisation, dependency, and capital expenditure significantly affect economic growth. The independence and effectiveness ratios have a positive impact, indicating that improvements in these variables directly foster economic growth. However, the efficiency and fiscal decentralisation ratios have a negative effect, suggesting that increases in these variables may reduce economic growth. Indirectly, through capital expenditure, the independence, effectiveness, dependency, and compatibility ratios significantly affect economic growth, with the independence ratio being the most dominant. Conversely, the fiscal decentralisation and efficiency ratios did not show significant indirect effects, indicating that capital expenditure is not an effective mediator for these variables. These findings provide insights into how local financial management strategies can influence regional development, offering key policy recommendations for Banten's local government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of economic development in China cannot be separated from the 'shadow' of government target intervention. Under the Chinese system of fiscal decentralization, constraints created by local government fiscal revenue targets (CCFRTs) will have a series of influence on development economically and socially. Based on the fiscal revenue target data revealed in the government work reports of 281 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this paper explores the influence of CCFRTs on green technology innovation (GTI). The findings are as follows: first, CCFRTs significantly inhibits GTI. Second, Spatial Durbin model analysis shows that CCFRTs has significant negative spatial spillover effect on GTI. Third, CCFRTs can affect GTI through the optimization of industrial structure, the level of human capital, and the degree of opening-up, technological progress and economic growth. Fourth, CCFRTs has an obvious threshold effect on GTI. Finally, the influence of CCFRTs on GTI has regional heterogeneity in central, eastern and western China. In the western and central regions, CCFRTs significantly restrains GTI significantly, while in the eastern region, CCFRTs significantly promotes GTI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IMPACT: This article investigates the autonomy and control of municipally owned corporations (MOCs) in the context of two centralized states: Turkey and Israel. It identifies the strategic and operational autonomy of MOCs, referring to logics of appropriateness and consequentiality explanations for factual autonomy. The study emphasizes the hybrid nature of most MOCs, subject to both private and public law. It proposes a new typology based on MOCs' legal structures to address limitations of current typologies. The comparative analysis using the new typology provides nuanced understanding of MOC autonomy in centralized states and equips practitioners with insights that can lead to tangible improvements. Results may steer further comparative research to identify broader patterns of control in MOC governance. They also provide practitioners and policy-makers with insights on fostering more efficient and effective MOC governance, and proposing evidence-based policy recommendations that balance the autonomy and control of MOCs. Corporatization of local government is a common practice in centralized states, where municipally owned corporations (MOCs) can increase local autonomy and generate independent municipal revenue. The authors' comparative analysis of MOC autonomy in Turkey and Israel shows that, in traditional service areas, public accountability is prioritized over performance in MOCs. The traditional distinction between MOCs based on public law and private law was found to be inadequate, as most MOCs are hybrid and subject to both public and private law. The findings highlight the importance of central government control as a key driver behind MOC autonomy formation. This research contributes to the agency, local government and MOC literatures by introducing a new MOC typology based on factual autonomy which can be operationalized to study cross-sectional and cross-sectoral patterns for MOC autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities worldwide are taking action to increase the amount and quality of urban green spaces. However, not all efforts for the greening of cities produce just and inclusive outcomes. For more inclusive urban greening processes, scholars have proposed incentivizing residents’ participation in planning and implementing green initiatives that promote creating and maintaining green spaces. However, further in-depth analysis of the connection between implementing new urban green spaces and environmental (in)justice is needed to understand how unjust outcomes might emerge due to policies aiming to promote the uptake of urban green through citizen engagement. To investigate the justice implications of policies that aim to create new urban green spaces through citizen participation, this article combines GIS analysis and qualitative analysis of 26 semi-structured interviews to evaluate the process and outcomes of the Green Agenda policy in Amsterdam. The Green Agenda (Agenda Groen) is a municipal policy supporting citizens’ initiatives to uptake urban green. Through the analysis of this case study, the article aims to identify factors that create barriers to achieving just outcomes during the implementation of policies for urban greening. Results indicate that although the approach has successfully increased the amount of urban green in Amsterdam, the presence of barriers that impede procedural justice and lack of recognition made the urban greening process less just. The three underlying factors that create barriers in Amsterdam are the centralization of the government, the lack of support for local organizations, and the effect of socioeconomic characteristics on inclusion and participation. The article concludes by discussing the synergies and tradeoffs between identified barriers and suggesting solutions to be integrated into future policies for more successful and just greening processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study asks whether existing standards of good governance have incorporated ideals and measures to manage communal diversity. The context is an intellectual landscape in which the efficacy of heterogeneity policies has typically been compared through their impact on the likelihood of violent conflict. Alternate approaches would fine‐tune the outcome variable and/or enlist new independent variables. The Ethnic Power Relations project provided measures of the groups' co‐determination position (egip, excl) and measures of empowerment through self‐governing start to follow suit, such as improved indicators of territorial autonomies, decentralization, and language use rights. We also crafted a measure of functional autonomies, based on the ENTA Network's case‐study collection. With the exception of territorial autonomies, all existing measures of policies that accommodate the difference tend to improve the group's relationships with other groups and with the country as a whole. They also correlate well with the general good governance indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes Brazil's Unified Health System (SUS), established by the 1988 Constitution. The papper initially presents the previous trajectory of national health policy and the context of democratization in the 1980s, which favored health reform and created a public, universal, and comprehensive health system. It then explores the advances and contradictions recorded in more than three decades of implementation of the SUS. The main advances observed were the creation of institutional mechanisms compatible with the federative arrangement and social participation, political and administrative decentralization, the national expansion of access to health, changes in the health care model, including strengthening primary care, and improvements in health indicators. On the other hand, the persistence of structural problems and disputes between different health agendas, with differences between governments, led to contradictions in financing and public-private relations in health. Despite the differences between countries, the analysis of the Brazilian case provides lessons on the challenges in building universal health systems in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effects of fiscal decentralization on people's access to health and education services in Cameroon. It is generally believed that fiscal decentralization is an essential way to improve people's access to social services such as education and health. After reviewing the literature, we employed the Driscoll and Kraay estimate in a sample of 45 rural and urban municipalities for the period 2010–2020 to find our results. The results show that fiscal decentralization has a positive effect on the number of classrooms per pupil and the number of desks per pupil. At the same time, it negatively affects public hospitals per capita and the state of public hospitals. To improve people's access to education and health services in Cameroon, it is necessary to encourage the transfer of powers to municipalities. There is a need to control the actions of local officials to avoid mismanagement of resources that will not benefit the population. Also, the responsibility for selecting communal projects financed via the public investment budget within the framework of decentralization should be exclusively that of municipal executives, and not that of the central government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A persistent literature gap exists in understanding the impact of fiscal decentralization on the digital economy. This study examines the correlation between fiscal decentralization and the development of digital economy drawing on the province data in China from 2013 to 2021. We find that (1): Local government fiscal decentralization actively nurtures the growth of the local digital economy (2). The principal mechanism propelling this phenomenon is the augmentation of financial decentralization facilitated by fiscal decentralization, thereby catalyzing the overall advancement of the digital economy. This study holds substantial significance in the global context of digital economy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a theoretical model of voluntary intermunicipal cooperation and empirically tests its assertions through the French municipalities' choices of transferring their competences to the intermunicipal level. Using an original threshold models inference procedure, a probit model is estimated on shared competences. Two main results arise. Contrary to the decentralisation theorem prediction, citizens' preference heterogeneity does not hinder local cooperation, but fiscal potential heterogeneity does. Moreover, a zoo effect is at stake for some competences, for which a significant threshold effect in their transfer probability is identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of China's industrial land approval reform (ILAR) on the provision of subnational services. Utilizing the 2011 pilot reform policy approved by the State Council, we utilize a staggered Difference-in-Differences (DID) method to determine the reform's impact on local economic growth and environmental protection. The findings reveal that the reform enhances local economic development and decreases pollution levels. Additionally, the reform significantly decreases land resource misallocation in pilot cities, enhancing productivity. We also find that local governments allocate more land to the tertiary sector through this reform, achieving industrial upgrading. The optimization effects are more pronounced in cities with higher fiscal pressure. Based on these findings, we recommend that policymakers sustain decentralization efforts and consider further incentives for cities under fiscal stress. We fill a gap in the literature by linking land use regulation with subnational service provision, contributing to the understanding of the socioeconomic benefits of decentralization and local government service levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Ukraine's decentralization reform and its impact on resisting Russia's military invasion and aiding in the country's recovery. The reform aimed to enhance the ability of regional and local authorities to provide public services and reduce fragmentation. It involved merging municipalities into amalgamated territorial communities (ATCs) and redistributing financial resources. While the reform had some flaws, such as imbalances in small ATCs, these issues were addressed with international assistance. The article also emphasizes the crucial role of local authorities in territorial defense and supporting internally displaced people during the war. Local authorities have played a significant role in registering IDPs, providing shelter, and participating in reconstruction efforts. They collaborate with international partners and use their own budgets to construct or repair housing, schools, kindergartens, residential buildings, bridges, and roads that were damaged or destroyed by Russia. The involvement of foreign partners through international patronage and interregional cooperation has also been highlighted, with the Multi-Agency Donor Cooperation Platform for Ukraine potentially contributing to the long-term recovery efforts led by subnational authorities. [Extracted from the article]

A complete understanding of the interplay between environmental regulations and fiscal decentralization for the realization of health outcomes is crucial for policy formulation and decision-making. The aim of the study is to investigate both policy variables' separate and combined impacts using data on four BRICS economies from 2000 to 2020. The study has employed the novel method of moments quantile regression to quantify the effect. The findings of the study show (i) a significant impact of regulations on health outcomes in higher quantiles. Environmental regulations have a strong positive impact on all three-health proxies, that is, health expenditures, life expectancy, and the number of infant deaths. Total revenue and expenditure decentralization affect health outcomes positively, while tax revenue decentralization negatively impacts them, with the effect being stronger in the lower quantiles; (ii) the combined impact of decentralization and environmental regulations turned out to be negative and significant in our study; and (iii) all variables have unidirectional causality. However, with tax revenue decentralization, health expenditures, life expectancy, and infant deaths have bidirectional causality. This finding has a strong policy implication for the policymakers. Although both policies positively impact health indicators, their interaction leads to deteriorating health outcomes. From a policy point of view, it is suggested to strike a balance between regulations and fiscal decentralization to realize the full potential of this policy mix to get better health outcomes. This study adds to previous research by incorporating the interconnected impact of environmental regulations and fiscal decentralization on health outcomes in BRICS economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have embarked on decentralization as a way to mitigate separation tendencies. Even though decentralization could satisfy some separation tendencies, the central government might be unable or unwilling to award the localities the level of decentralization they require to stay in the union. This mismatch may give rise to domestic violence and internal conflict. We propose a simple two-stage model that combines the decentralization and domestic terrorism literature in a single structural model, which can be readily tested using existing data in the disciplines. As long as the actual decentralization level meets the unobserved desired value by the localities, there will be a high likelihood of observing a zero incidence of domestic terrorism. Otherwise, the incidents happen regularly with mitigating effects from decentralization. Our model also accounts for the left-censoring of the terrorism data at zero. We examine our model using 5-year interval panel data of more than 60 countries based on the information for 1970–2019. Our results indicate a strong negative and statistically significant relationship between fiscal decentralization and domestic terrorism events. One percent increase in fiscal decentralization is associated with a two to three percent decline in domestic terrorism incidents. The coefficients of the selection model and domestic terrorism model generally conform to the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current severe carbon emissions situation in China increases the demand for a sound environmental governance system. Using provincial panel data from 2003 to 2017, this study investigates the spatial impact of different types of environmental decentralization (ED) on total factor carbon productivity (TFCP) and its internal mechanisms and explores the threshold effect of horizontal environmental decentralization (HED) and fiscal decentralization (FD) on this impact. The results indicate that the effect of ED on TFCP exists after considering the spatial dependence. An inverted "U-shaped" relationship exists between vertical environmental decentralization (VED) and TFCP, and a "U-shaped" relationship between horizontal environmental decentralization (HED) and TFCP; that is, excessive VED and insufficient HED will inhibit TFCP. Green technology innovation acts as a mediator in the impact of ED on TFCP, including VED and HED. The dynamic threshold panel model finds that both the increase of HED and FD improved the promotion effect of VED on TFCP, but the change in HED gradually reduced the promotion effect. China should adhere to the Goldilocks principle, strengthen vertical environmental centralization and promote horizontal environmental decentralization to create a superior institutional environment for stimulating green technological innovation to further weaken the "free rider" effect of environmental governance caused by externalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's 74th Constitutional Amendment obliges state governments to devolve responsibilities related to urban environmental resources and services to the Urban Local Bodies. However, the existing literature points to deficiencies in urban decentralization, including a mismatch between resources and responsibilities, financial constraints, and a lack of capacities at the municipal level. This article, based on comparative fieldwork and analysis of environmental governance in four small cities in Gujarat and West Bengal, two states representing contrasting subnational political regimes, largely confirms the literature on urban decentralization, but it also shows important differences between the two states. Municipal governance reflects state-level regime types to some extent: While an efficient local and parastatal bureaucracy spearheads investments in environmental infrastructure in Gujarat, relatively autonomous elected municipal councillors in West Bengal guide a widely spread creation of small environmental assets. The availability of more untied funds at the local level in Gujarat than in West Bengal leads to more pronounced intra-state variation and opens possibilities for more substantial municipal agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fiscal decentralization is perceived as a viable strategy for fostering economic growth in Pakistan. Concerns persist regarding its potential impact on environmental quality, particularly in relation to increased carbon emissions. Employing diverse analytical methods such as structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) modeling and autoregressive moving average model evaluations, this study comprehensively explores the dynamic relationships among fiscal decentralization, economic development, and environmental quality over the period 1979–2019. Intriguing trends emerge, revealing positive correlations between environmental efficiency and variables, including revenue collection, tax autonomy, and transfer payments. Conversely, a negative correlation is observed between government spending and economic growth. The interplay of these variables results in oscillations in the influence of fiscal decentralization on carbon emissions, presenting a complex challenge for policymakers. Notably, positive fiscal decentralization shocks lead to an increase in carbon emissions, while positive expenditure decentralization and economic development correlate with decreased carbon emissions. Despite economic growth's statistically significant negative impact on carbon emissions, the intricate nature of the relationships underscores the complexity of the link between fiscal decentralization, economic expansion, and environmental outcomes. From a policy perspective, the study emphasizes the need to adjust fiscal policies and coordinate intergovernmental fiscal ties across all government levels to enhance environmental efficiency. These findings provide policymakers with valuable insights to navigate the intricate landscape of fiscal decentralization and its environmental implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the potential determinants of state-level economic freedom for a panel of the 50 U.S. states from 1994 to 2020. To address model uncertainty in the identification of robust determinants, we use Bayesian model averaging to test the robustness (to the inclusion and exclusion of other determinants) of 17 potential determinants that have been recognized in the extant literature. The results show robustness with respect to the positive impact of the level of per capita real income and its growth, fiscal decentralization and neighbouring state economic freedom, whereas per capita fossil fuel production, population density, unemployment rate and democratic governorships have a negative impact. The remaining determinants were not robustly associated with economic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key objectives of this research study are to construct a valid and reliable household-based Human Development Index (HDI) and to estimate human development disparities in 36 districts of Punjab (Pakistan) by analysing Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey microdata. The household-level HDI, a composite index, is constructed by applying the arithmetic mean of the household-level health, asset, and education indices. The district of Lahore, among all the 36 districts of Punjab, has the highest HDI score of 0.743, followed by districts Rawalpindi, Jhelum, and Gujrat. Four neighbouring districts from South Punjab: Rajanpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzzaffar Gar, and Rahim Yaar Khan, have the lowest HDI scores of 0.492, 0508, 0.531, and 0.566, respectively. This paper has used the Palma-ratio and Gini-coefficient to estimate human development disparities in Punjab. The highest human development disparities are observed in the Rajanpur district with a Gini-coefficient of 0.38 and a Palma Ratio of 1.55. Both the Gini and Palma Ratio methods produce similar district rank orderings of inequality. This research recommends that additional efforts be made to uplift the districts with the lowest human development in Southern Punjab through local government restructuring and devolution of relevant powers, including the formation of a separate province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of regional per-capita income convergence has been widely investigated theoretically and empirically. This study reviews the relevant literature and considers the possible significance of fiscal decentralisation in the convergence process. Alternative indicators of fiscal decentralization are examined within a SDM model which also takes into account possible spatial interdependencies between neighbouring regions. The modelling suggests that fiscal decentralization does appear to play a significant role in the convergence process in Vietnam. Income inequality remains a challenging issue for policymakers to resolve, and if regional disparities can be reduced in part through fiscal decentralization, this is a significant finding for policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideal of self-correcting competitive markets has delayed proper acknowledgement of consumer harm and monopolization in technology platform markets. Two attitudes have long dominated the policy landscape: a historical reluctance to over-enforce antitrust and a tendency to frame the regulation of digital platforms in categorical terms. Should policy makers “regulate” or should they “break up” Big Tech? Should they decentralize digital power, or should they transform companies like Google into accountable bottlenecks? These ways of articulating the problem reflect an impoverished understanding of the scope of antitrust law and the nature of regulation in the digital economy more broadly. Policymakers often rely on narrow justifications for legal intervention such as efficiency, natural monopoly, externalities, and transaction costs. They conceive of antitrust, which includes remedies such as break-ups, as a body of law that acts marginally to preserve pre-legal, efficient, and decentralized market processes. They view utilities and other regulatory schemes as rigid modes of intervention in production that interfere with free competition and limit consumer choice and innovation. These conceptions obscure a more nuanced picture. Decentralizing and centralizing efforts, which structure digital markets, overlap across legal domains. To make sense of this overlap, the Article defends a conceptual move away from disciplinary categories and discontinuous remedial solutions and toward an experimentalist approach to law in digital ecosystems. In practice, antitrust and regulatory law are converging in revealing ways. Antitrust cases are increasingly sensitive to the gatekeeping power of platform intermediaries and procompetitive digital market regulation is on the rise. As such, the justifications for an either/or approach to antitrust and regulation, e.g., the preference for underenforcement and ex post intervention, are untenable. Antitrust is but one branch of law that structures and enables competition. Regulatory frameworks such as the DMA in Europe do not undermine but instead can promote competition, innovation, and consumer choice. Relying on the case of Google and its regulation between 1998 and 2022, and looking at regulatory schemes such as the EU DMA, AICOA and the AMERICA Act, the Article situates antitrust and public utility efforts as part of a spectrum of regulatory approaches to digital markets. It configures the space of regulatory possibility across ex ante and ex post, centralizing and decentralizing strategies. The question is not whether to break up or regulate Big Tech, it is what forms of competition, innovation, and choice a digital society needs as it transforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the significance of fiscal decentralization and technological innovations cannot be ignored in monitoring the targets of environmental-related sustainable development goals, a full picture of its relationship with environmental quality is vigorous. Thus, this study aims to analyze the influence of financial centralization and technological development on environmental quality in China during the period from 2000 to 2020. The results of this study indicate the positive role of fiscal decentralization in ecological damages by increasing sulfur dioxide emissions. Moreover, technological innovations assist to diminish the pollution levels. The study also confirmed the association between environmental degradation and economic growth in an inverted U-shaped environment Kuznets curve hypothesis. The policy targeting financial decentralization, technological innovation, and economic growth significantly alter sulfur dioxide emissions and vice versa. The progress of this research also has important political effects by restructuring government expenditures and making them more effective by balancing local development and enhancing the quality of the environment. Regarding policy ramifications, we believe that to address declining ecological quality, China should develop measures to diminish the levels of environmental pollution by encouraging an energy-efficient system. Furthermore, it is critical to explain duties at dissimilar government levels to efficiently fulfill the objectives of energy-saving functions and low sulfur emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to establish the relationship between certain institutional variables and the effectiveness of fiscal decentralisation in Latin America. To fulfil this objective, we took a sample of 15 Latin American countries for the years 1996 to 2020 to estimate the logarithm of GDP per capita based on the level of fiscal decentralisation, as well as its interaction with six institutional variables plus three control variables. The results show that institutional variables always modulate the effects of fiscal decentralisation, in most cases significantly and negatively, the exceptions being accountability with a positive result and government effectiveness with a non-significant result. It was concluded that in the presence of weak regulations, political conflicts, and corruption, fiscal decentralisation can worsen social or economic circumstances in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of the role that the department should assume in Colombia in terms of provision of goods and services given the weaknesses that characterize municipalities today. For this, the territorial categorization tool established in the Political Constitution of 1991 was used, which proposes the grouping of territorial entities and the definition of different regulatory regimes in order to distinguish, among other aspects, the functions that correspond to each group. Through the use of ACP, three sets of 9, 14 and 9 departments were obtained, for which municipal groups were first made and then the composition of these municipal groups within each of the departments was established. Finally, the functional emphases of each group of municipalities were identified to later determine the roles of the departmental groups in terms of direct provision, municipal assistance and regional planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Action researchers are empowered because they carry out research with rather than on participants. Likewise, the Tanzanian government has been attempting to devolve power to the people since independence. The latest efforts started in the 1980s and focused on the devolution of power from central government to the people through local governments. The uniqueness of the decentralization process and the associated reforms in the country have attracted some scholarly attention, with researchers asserting that the existing model of local government, famously known as Decentralization by Devolution (D-by-D), has considerable potential. However, past research on decentralization has generally been disempowering. Using Action Research (AR), this study aimed to explore strategies to empower local marginalized communities, as co-researchers, to identify key local challenges in accessing public resources, notably water, and enable them to take initial steps towards addressing them through existing local government structures. The application of AR suggests that Tanzania has strong local government structures that can accommodate the participation of marginalized communities in the management of water and other public resources. Nevertheless, local communities need to be empowered through participatory approaches to best interact with the local government structures and ensure accountability in the management of such resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article 18 paragraph (2) of 1945 Constitution Republic Indonesia shows that the relationship between provincial government and regency/city government is an equal relationship because the Governor and Regent/Mayor both run government in their respective regions based on principles of decentralization (regional autonomy) and assistance tasks. The governor has a dual position or role, namely as head of provincial region as well as Head of Region / Representative of the Central Government in region. Settle disputes in the implementation of government functions between districts / cities in 1 (one)province. Give approval to draft regency/city regulation on the formation and composition of regency/city regional apparatus, and exercise other powers in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations the nature of authority is free authority, so in its application the governor can use discretion to make decisions and actions if regent /mayor is underperforming, does not carry out the obligations specified in laws and regulations, and violates the oath / pledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to the failures of the good governance agenda in the post‐Cold War period, development scholars and policy researchers have placed increasing emphasis on approaches that can enable practitioners to support local change processes in politically savvy ways. Sometimes referred to as the 'second orthodoxy' in donor practice, these models aim to take the politics of aid‐receiving contexts seriously and work 'with the grain' of the institutional landscapes in which they are applied. This paper examines how these principles were put into practice within the ODI's Budget Strengthening Initiative (BSI) in Uganda. The paper shows how an 'embedded' form of technical assistance enabled the BSI to act micro‐politically, brokering the adoption of fiscal decentralisation reforms within the Uganda government. However, in the face of a broader political landscape of regime survival, the BSI's position within Uganda's financial technocracy also constrained its capacity to support these reforms. In this context of declining autonomy and shifting political constraints, the BSI worked 'with the grain' to reshape the reforms to align with pre‐existing political logics that hindered pro‐poor outcomes. Going forward, the paper suggests that further attention might be applied to understanding and addressing the fundamental tensions and trade‐offs involved in working 'with the grain' of challenging political contexts like Uganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the perspective of fiscal decentralization, the study focuses on 30 provinces in China and employs various econometric models including the threshold model, spatial econometric model, mediation model, and regulation model. The research findings indicate that fiscal decentralization has a double‐threshold effect on government intervention, market mechanisms, and regional carbon emission reduction. Both government intervention and market mechanisms have inhibiting effects on carbon emission, with significant coefficients of GOVI and MARM at the 1% level. The cooperation between government intervention and the market mechanism effectively limits carbon emissions. Government intervention facilitates regional carbon emission reduction through the construction of new infrastructures and energy structure transformation, yielding a significant intermediary effect. The market mechanism is positively regulated through green finance and technology innovation to promote regional carbon emission reduction. Moreover, government intervention enables the market to achieve carbon emission reduction more effectively, especially in areas with a higher degree of government intervention. Continuous improvement and upgrading of regional and national carbon markets are essential to attain the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. Furthermore, attracting more participants to these markets for emission control subjects is necessary to enhance the effectiveness of government–market coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of International Relations has been increasingly paying more attention to the rise of non-state entities as new global actors. Consequently, this also brings the concept of paradiplomacy, or the diplomatic activities conducted by substate governments, to the forefront of discussion within the discipline. However, since paradiplomacy mainly stems from the tradition of federalism in the Western world, limited studies have provided more theoretical nuance through case studies in non- Western, unitary states. This article attempts to fill the knowledge gap by exploring the politics of paradiplomacy in Indonesia, a developing unitary state. This article argues that the concept of mandala, a Southeast Asian philosophy of governance, can be utilized to understand the politics of paradiplomacy in Indonesia. The authors contend that the Indonesian paradiplomatic culture primarily stems from the mandala concept, which has consistently pervaded Southeast Asian political culture and influenced Indonesia's paradiplomacy architecture. This concept emphasizes harmony between the center and periphery. In the bigger picture, this article rejects the notion of an 'ideal' paradiplomatic culture based upon Western practices and contends that non- Western states might have their own interpretations of local-central relations, which are worth noticing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether fiscal decentralization will lead to agricultural land "non-grainization" has been widely debated in academic circles. How to improve the efficiency of financial support to agriculture and optimize the grain planting structure by clarifying the relationship between central and local powers and responsibilities is the key to ensuring food security. Based on the panel data of 170 cities in China from 2004 to 2017, this paper uses system moment estimation and a threshold effect model to explore the impact of fiscal decentralization on grain planting structure. The results show that (1) fiscal decentralization has a significant negative effect on the share of food crop cultivation in the major grain-producing areas. (2) Taking the wage level, financial support for agriculture, and land finance as the threshold variables, the test finds that there is a threshold effect of fiscal decentralization on the proportion of food crop cultivation, in which land finance dependence and rises in the wage level are conducive to mitigating the negative effect of fiscal decentralization on the proportion of food crop cultivation. (3) For the three major types of food crop varieties, the negative impact of fiscal decentralization on the share of wheat and corn crop cultivation is subject to the threshold effect of wage level, financial support for agriculture, and land finance, while the impact of fiscal decentralization on the share of rice crop cultivation is not significant. The results of the study have an important guiding role for the government to deepen the reform of the tax-sharing system, improve the long-term mechanism of stable growth of financial support for grain, and optimize the layout of the grain industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All aspects of law possess scaler elements, but critiques from the 'politics of scale', a concept well established in political geography, remain rare in legal analysis. Brexit, especially as regards Northern Ireland, provides a key opportunity to consider scaler analysis both in a descriptive and theoretical sense. Scale deepens our understanding of how law co-constitutes multiple scales but also highlights where a flat understanding of law tied to vertical jurisdictional frames foils attempts to garner a full understanding of its operation. Northern Ireland, a legal and political space that from one perspective lends itself to an apparently clear-cut vertical description of legal scales, actually presents a rich space where networked, rhetorical and nodular scales and structures continuously (re)contest scaled solutions. The Brexit outcome of what used to be known as the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland and is now known as the Windsor Framework – and specifically how the Framework is intended to operate in practice – provides an opportunity to not only understand Northern Ireland within a scale and law frame, but also to highlight the shortcomings of law's traditional scaler approach and what lessons may be learned when analysing or engaging with the intersection of law and politics in similar future situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving carbon neutrality is essential for environmental sustainability and should be pursued with minimal disruption to economic growth. China's recent commitment to carbon neutrality holds significant importance in current discussions. This study investigates strategies to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs), emphasizing carbon neutrality. It also examines the long-term impacts and causality between fiscal decentralization and institutional quality in relation to carbon dioxide (CO2). emissions Utilizing the quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) approach and the Granger causality in quantiles, our findings reveal a statistically negative ECM parameter across all quantiles. This indicates a stable, long-term relationship between fiscal decentralization (FDC), institutional quality (INSQ), and CO 2 emissions. The study verifies the presence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in China across different quantiles. In the long run, fiscal decentralization seems to increase CO 2 emissions, but robust institutional quality mitigates this impact. The Granger causality results highlight the intricate relationships among the variables. This research emphasizes the need for policymakers to bolster environmental protection and efficiency, ensuring fiscal decentralization benefits both environmental and economic agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, over the last few decades, countries have become increasingly decentralized but only recently did they recognize the need for incorporating a gender dimension into such policies. As a result, the relationship between fiscal decentralization, which implies delegating fiscal powers from national to subnational governments, and gender equality remains elusive. In this paper, I study the impact of expenditure decentralization on gender equality using panel data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development -- OECD countries between 2006 and 2021. I find that decentralization of expenditure increases gender equality in these countries. My results also demonstrate that unionization, the extent of a country's integration with the rest of the world, urbanization, population growth, and the state of democracy also matter for gender equality. This suggests that these factors should also accompany expenditure decentralization if the governments of these countries want to further promote gender equality through such public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the efficiency of service delivery across 213 local and metropolitan municipalities in South Africa, focusing on four critical areas: electricity, water, sewerage and waste removal. Utilising a order‐ m partial frontier efficiency analysis (PFEA), the study calculates output‐oriented efficiency scores for each municipality, incorporating adjustments for service quality based on an 'infrastructure quality‐index'. Our empirical findings indicate marked variations in efficiency, with electricity services exhibiting the highest efficiency rate at 35%, while waste removal lags behind at 22%. Additionally, municipalities centred around small urban towns are found to be more efficient, challenging the widely held view that larger municipalities are better equipped for efficient service delivery. The analysis offers empirical insights into local government performance in South Africa, underscoring the need for targeted policy interventions to address efficiency gaps. These results not only inform fiscal and administrative decentralisation strategies but also set the groundwork for future research exploring the underlying factors affecting municipal efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous empirical studies suggest that fiscal decentralisation, measured by the number of government layers, is associated with less foreign direct investment (FDI). With an improved dataset on the tax autonomy of sub‐federal government tiers, we present evidence that fiscal decentralisation (de facto) does not reduce FDI. If local governments can set their tax rates and bases autonomously, they attract more FDI. Analysing 128,425 corporate cross‐border acquisitions (CBA), between 194 source and 215 host jurisdictions from 1997 to 2021, we find that full taxation autonomy by subnational governments can double the number of CBAs in a given year. These results apply to high‐income hosts and do not depend on specific periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a comprehensive and updated review of the effects of intergovernmental grants. We focus on the main findings in the existing literature on the effects of intergovernmental grants on tax policy and choices, expenditure decisions, fiscal stability and behavioral choices, and political economy. The intricate nature of the subject, intrinsically, does not allow for an all-inclusive survey, but we aim to provide a thorough examination and update of the most salient effects of intergovernmental grants, while indicating areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]