TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Chaudhary, Latika
AU  - Iyer, Lakshmi
        TI  - The Importance of Being Local? Administrative Decentralization and Human Development
        PY  - 2024/Jun/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 17053
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp17053
        AB  - We examine the human development consequences of transferring responsibility for public service provision to local governments in India, using state-level variation in the timing of administrative decentralization reforms. We find that devolution of the responsibility for health functions from state to local governments, without concomitant authority over personnel or taxation, results in a worsening of neonatal, infant and under-5 child mortality. Such partial devolution results in worse indicators of public health provision, as well as lower rates of primary school completion. Our results cannot be attributed to differential pre-trends, omitted variables bias, or heterogeneous treatment effects.
        KW  - decentralization
KW  - infant mortality
KW  - primary schooling
KW  - local governments
KW  - India
        ER  -