Decentralisation has frequently been sold as a means to increase well-being and development. Yet, questions remain as to whether decentralisation improves economic performance. This is possibly ...because decentralisation processes have often led to ‘unfunded mandates’, that is, a mismatch between the powers transferred to subnational tiers of government and the resources allocated to them. In this article, we analyse how unfunded mandates shape regional economic growth across 518 regions in 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries over the period 1997–2018. There is a negative, statistically significant, and robust impact of unfunded mandates on economic growth. This effect is higher in more politically and less fiscally decentralised regions and in regions with a higher level of wealth. Unfunded mandates thus represent a serious drag on the potential positive economic effect of political decentralisation. Hence, for those benefits to materialise, better not more decentralisation – ensuring that finance follows function – should be pursued.
Improving environmental quality and fiscal management has become one of the utmost imperative policy agendas for sustainable development. Although many studies explore multiple deriving factors of ...environmental sustainability; however, very little is known regarding the impact of composite (revenue and expenditure) fiscal decentralisation (FD) on environmental quality. Manifestly, the intergovernmental fiscal relations advocate to ensure the alignment of tax and spending powers to promote sustainable and inclusive growth. Therefore, we explore the asymmetric linkages between composite FD, green innovation, institutional governance and carbon emissions in 32 OECD countries. Our preliminary results confirm non‐linearity and structural changes in data, which instigate us to apply the asymmetric method of moments quantile regression. The overall findings exhibit that composite FD significantly mitigates carbon emissions only at medium to higher (5th–9th) emissions quantiles. In contrast, green innovation reduces carbon emissions from lower to medium (1st–5th) emissions quantiles. Institutional reforms promote environmental sustainability across all emissions quantiles (1st–9th). Interestingly, the emissions‐reducing effect of composite FD, green innovation and institutional governance is highest for higher emissions quantiles and lowest for lower emissions quantiles. These results provide valuable policy recommendations for all stakeholders.
Through the case of commercial timber production in Nepal's community forests, we uncover and explain how effective anti-corruption and harvest regulation have produced a kind of ‘allowed’ corruption ...that promotes forest conservation. An ethnographic study in four community forests and in-depth interviews of nearly 200 actors along the Sal (Shorea robusta) timber commodity chain showed that all actors participated in a highly organised form of collusive corruption. Anti-corruption officials call this practice “corruption without illegality” because it does not involve unauthorised harvest in community forests. Instead, it suppresses producer prices through legally required but rigged timber auctions that generate windfall profits, which sawmill owners share with upstream actors to ensure a steady supply of raw logs. Local-level timber brokers connect community forest user groups to sawmill owners. They also operate as stealth conveyers of unofficial payments to forestry officials and other upstream actors because they can camouflage such cash flows as transaction costs. Anti-corruption authorities enforce formal timber harvesting rules, which deters forestry officials from getting involved in overharvesting schemes. However, these same rules, plus some legal posturing, allow forestry officials to extract rents from legally harvested logs at minimum risk. This is hardly a coincidence because it enables the central administration to regulate difficult-to-control field-level forestry officials' behaviour without curtailing their access to informal incomes. Forest user groups lose out, but they could increase their timber income substantially by exercising their powers to decide whether or not to harvest timber. Elevating timber auction floor prices through state intervention is also feasible.
•Community forests are a prime source of commercial Sal (Shorea robusta) timber in Nepal.•Actors collude to maximise private gains through reciprocal relations.•Corruption without illegality allows officials to generate informal income without engaging in over-harvesting forests.•Suppressed producer prices finance this paradoxical system of forest conservation through corruption.
The ability of federal states to manage the COVID-19 pandemic has created much debate. Federations differ considerably in the way they have been tackling the crisis, however. To shed light on how ...European federations (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) managed COVID-19, this paper distinguishes two dimensions of federal decision making: centralised/decentralised and unilateral/coordinated decision making. Drawing on official government documents and press reports, it examines decisions on the introduction of containment measures and their subsequent easing during the first wave. While Austria and Switzerland adopted a centralised approach, decentralised decision making prevailed in Germany. However, most decisions were coordinated between the governments at the federal and constituent unit level in Austria and Germany, in contrast to Switzerland where unilateralism prevailed. This difference in approaches can partly be explained by the distribution of powers. Political and economic factors also influenced the choice of crisis management strategies.
This article explores the constitutional provisions and legislative aspects governing the role of local governments in generating and distributing electricity in South Africa. It encompasses the ...constitutional framework, which grants municipalities specific powers and responsibilities, highlighting the significance of these "original powers" derived directly from the Constitution. The article emphasises the need for intergovernmental cooperation at national, provincial, and local government levels to effectively address the complexities of electricity provision, taking into account related services such as water, sanitation, and environmental rights. The article further assesses recent amendments to the Electricity Regulation Act 4 of 2006, which grant municipalities greater involvement in electricity generation and procurement from independent power producers. While these amendments are seen as positive, the article highlights the need for financial resources and technical capacity building to empower municipalities to undertake these new responsibilities effectively. Ultimately, it emphasises the critical role of local governments in ensuring a sustainable and reliable supply of electricity for their communities while calling for comprehensive support from higher government levels to realise this goal.
The decentralised provision of social services raises concerns about cn'ailability of sendees in different geographical areas, particularly in low- and middleincome countries with weak governance and ...fiscal redistributive capacities. Yet the interconnection of different decentralisation regimes and territorial inequalities in the provision of social services remains underexplored. This article engages with one aspect of this puzzle, the implications of the fiscal conditions on exacerbating (or overcoming) territorial inequalities in services provision. Using the Croatian system of early childhood education and care (data for the 2005-2018 period) as an empirical lens, the article shows that in the absence of a well-established policy andfiscal framework sensitive to regional inequalities in administrative and fiscal capacities, decentralised systems can only institutionalise territorial inequalities in services provision. Next to the legal entitlement to a certain service, inter-territorial fiscal equalisation policies are crucial in overcoming fragmentation in social rights along territorial lines.
Integrating sustainable heat sources into district heating systems is crucial to reduce the mainly fossil-based heat supply in the building sector. However, integrating a heat source into an existing ...district heating system can be challenging due to non-matching temperature levels or unfavourable availability of the heat source intended for utilisation. To avoid the problems associated with heat source integration, i.e. utilisation in an existing district heating system, an alternative approach is to separate the district heating network into two independent networks. Thus, the separated network forms a standalone district heating system, which is supplied by the utilised heat source and can be individually transformed depending on the characteristics of the utilised heat source and the supplied buildings. In this way, complex design and control adaptions for the entire district heating system are avoided.
This work presents a method for the automatic determination of optimal district heating separation depending on the given district heating network structure and the heat source that should be utilised. For this purpose, an optimisation model determines the separation based on predefined coherent areas in the network, while considering the potential of the heat source and the heat requirements of the buildings. The application of the presented method shows various network separations depending on the heat source conditions and the focused optimisation objectives. The subsequent network simulation identifies critical areas for insufficient heat supply from which various necessary measures could be derived.
•Separating district heating networks facilitates the utilisation of heat sources.•An optimisation model reveals the optimal separation of district heating networks.•The network separation considers available heat capacity and temperature level.•Heat pumps are installed in the separated network to utilise low-temperature heat.•A subsequent simulation evaluates the separated district heating networks.
We wanted to better understand whether and how agility can be achieved in a decentralised service delivery organisation in Sweden. The pandemic outbreak of SARS-Cov-2 (Covid-19) provided an ...opportunity to assess decentralisation as a strategy to improve the responsiveness of healthcare and at the same time handle an unpredictable and unexpected event.
Data from in-depth interviews with a crisis management team (n = 23) and free text answers in a weekly survey to subordinated clinical directors, i.e. unit managers, (n = 108) were scrutinised in a directed content analysis. Dynamic capabilities as a prerequisite for dynamic effectiveness, understood as reaching strategic and operative effectiveness simultaneously, were explored by using three frameworks for dynamic effectiveness, dynamic capabilities and delegated authority in a decentralised organisation.
Unpredictable events, such as the pandemic Covid-19 outbreak, demand a high grade of ability to be flexible. We find that a high degree of operational effectiveness, which is imperative in an emergency situation, also is a driver of seeking new strategic positions to even better meet new demands. The characteristics of the dynamic capabilities evolving from this process are described and discussed in relation to decentralisation, defined by decision space, organisational and individual capacity as well as accountability. We present arguments supporting that a decentralised management model can facilitate the agility required in an emergency.
This study is, to our knowledge, the first of its kind where a decentralised management model in a service delivery organisation in healthcare is studied in relation to crisis management. Although stemming from one organisation, our findings indicating the value of decentralisation in situations of crisis are corroborated by theory, suggesting that they could be relevant in other organisational settings also.
Blockchains or distributed ledgers are an emerging technology that has drawn considerable interest from energy supply firms, startups, technology developers, financial institutions, national ...governments and the academic community. Numerous sources coming from these backgrounds identify blockchains as having the potential to bring significant benefits and innovation. Blockchains promise transparent, tamper-proof and secure systems that can enable novel business solutions, especially when combined with smart contracts. This work provides a comprehensive overview of fundamental principles that underpin blockchain technologies, such as system architectures and distributed consensus algorithms. Next, we focus on blockchain solutions for the energy industry and inform the state-of-the-art by thoroughly reviewing the literature and current business cases. To our knowledge, this is one of the first academic, peer-reviewed works to provide a systematic review of blockchain activities and initiatives in the energy sector. Our study reviews 140 blockchain research projects and startups from which we construct a map of the potential and relevance of blockchains for energy applications. These initiatives were systematically classified into different groups according to the field of activity, implementation platform and consensus strategy used.11A summary of the research projects reviewed in this study can be found in the Appendix A. Opportunities, potential challenges and limitations for a number of use cases are discussed, ranging from emerging peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, to decentralised marketplaces, electric vehicle charging and e-mobility. For each of these use cases, our contribution is twofold: first, in identifying the technical challenges that blockchain technology can solve for that application as well as its potential drawbacks, and second in briefly presenting the research and industrial projects and startups that are currently applying blockchain technology to that area. The paper ends with a discussion of challenges and market barriers the technology needs to overcome to get past the hype phase, prove its commercial viability and finally be adopted in the mainstream.
•One of the first systematic reviews of blockchains in the energy sector.•Overview of key principles of distributed ledger technologies.•Detailed review of energy applications and use cases such as P2P energy trading.•Discussion on benefits and limitations of blockchains for energy applications.•Review & classification of around 140 blockchain commercial and research initiatives.
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