Roy Bahl's implementation rules for fiscal decentralization: theoretical insights and empirical evidence from OECD countries
基于鲍尔财政分权第一规则，构建综合测度指标，利用欧氏距离和马氏距离对OECD国家2022年财政分权全面性进行排序，为公共财政政策提供实证参考。
The paper refers to the twelve principles of fiscal decentralization, proposed by Roy Bahl (Bahl’s Rules for Fiscal Decentralization – BRfd), with special emphasis on the first Bahl’s rule (regarding the comprehensiveness of the fiscal decentralization, CSfd). The purpose of the research was to estimate the level of CSfd in OECD countries. Thus, the objective was to construct a synthetic measure of the first Bahl’s rule (CSfd) which constitutes the value added of this research. The goal was also to rank countries as the main idea was to advance empirical assessment in the field of fiscal federalism and to provide practical guidance for shaping public finance policy including policies on the collection of public revenues and the allocation of public expenditure. This directly corresponds to the research problem of the very limited number of tools available for measuring fiscal decentralization. Based on Hellwig’s method of linear ordering two rankings were developed using the Euclidean metric and the Mahalanobis metric. The results indicate that the most comprehensive fiscal decentralisation systems in 2022 were found in the Slovak Republic, Switzerland and Canada (ranking based on the Mahalanobis metric). When the Euclidean metric is used, Switzerland emerges as the leader, followed by Spain and Austria. First published online 4 June 2026