Speed of spending and government decentralization: evidence from Italy
研究了意大利政府分权对公共项目持续时间的影响，发现分权在南方和部分中部地区降低了支出速度，而在北方和多数中部地区效果不一，差异由地方制度质量驱动。
This paper investigates whether government decentralization affects the duration of public projects in Italy. Considering a large sample of 415,378 projects managed by different levels of government and co-funded by European funds within the 2007–13 programming period, we found strong differences between areas. In the South and in some Central regions, project duration was higher for the lowest level of government and lower at more centralized levels. This suggests that decentralization there reduced the speed of public spending and therefore spending efficiency. In the North and in most Central regions, the results were mixed. These regional differences were driven by the quality of local institutions.