(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-09-27) Cadaval-Sampedro, María; Herrero Alcalde, Ana; Lago-Peñas, Santiago; Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge
Extreme events, such as economic crises, natural disasters, or military conflicts, can affect the balance between centralization and decentralization forces across countries and transform, temporarily or more permanently, the design of multilevel governance. Using a panel for 91 developing and developed countries from 1960 to 2018, and another one for OECD countries between 1995-2018, we examine the effects of extreme external shocks on the decentralization level. We find that armed conflicts boost decentralization, while natural disasters reduce it only in non-OECD countries, with long lasting effects in both cases. Economic recessions do not have significant effects on the level of decentralization, except for the lasting effects on expenditure recentralization in OECD countries.
