Natural Disaster Impacts and Fiscal Decentralization
利用1970-2005年跨国数据，研究发现政府分权程度越高的国家，自然灾害导致的死亡人数越少，为评估分权效果提供了新视角。
In recent years, many developing countries have sought to implement more decentralized governmental systems. Despite efforts toward fiscal federalism, assessment of decentralization activity has been hampered by lack of consistent cross-country measures of effectiveness. Since governments play a central role in the management of catastrophic events, disaster impact data provide an opportunity to evaluate whether government structure is important in limiting disaster losses. We use cross-country data over the 1970–2005 period to estimate the relationship between decentralization and disaster casualties; countries with more decentralized governments experience fewer disaster-induced fatalities. <i></i>