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Title: Decentralisation or patronage: what determines the government's allocation of development spending in a unitary country? Evidence from Bangladesh
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2023
ISBN: 978-1-912607-21-1
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Abstract: This paper contributes to the decentralisation and distributive politics literature by empirically investigating the determinants of public expenditure at the sub-national level in Bangladesh. We argue that fragmentation in a unitary developing country may not channel higher resources to local areas. However, in such countries, political motives may play a significant role in the allocation process. Using panel data methods and a novel dataset on the government’s districtwise allocation of annual development expenditure in Bangladesh, covering the period from 2005 to 2009, the analysis focuses on the impact of local government fragmentation and tests key political distribution models (the core voter hypothesis, the swing voter hypothesis and political alignment theory). The results show that local government fragmentation does not have any significant impact on public spending at the district level. However, the core vote share, political alignment of the local elected representative with the ruling party, and the raw number of ministers from a district are all significantly associated with higher expenditure allocations, supporting the idea that political patronage matters for resource allocation. No evidence was found in support of the swing voter hypothesis. Overall, the study’s findings suggest that suggest that political motives matter and that the allocation of developing spending is significantly influenced by political patronage. This may be a significant obstacle to SDGs progress, as development spending may not be governed by resource delivery mechanisms that effectively target the poor.
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Authors: Masud Ali, Amin; Savoia, Antonio
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Publication Number: 2023-063
Institution: The University of Manchester Global Development Institute
Pages: 1-44
Publisher Location:
Data Collections: IPUMS International
Topics: Poverty and Welfare
Countries: Bangladesh