Multilevel Policy Provision On this page you may find a policy provision dataset and an expert survey on externalities and scale effects. On the multilevel policy provision page you may find more background information on the policy provision dataset and the expert survey. Policy Provision Data The policy provision dataset details for 34 policies which government tier (national, regional or local) is responsible for provision of that policy. The data is presented for 28 three-tier and 11 two-tier countries seperately. Please consult my article in Acta Politica for more information (e.g. sources, measurement, analysis) about the policy provision dataset. [Policy Provision in Three-Tier Countries] Three-tier countries: Albania, Austria, Azerbijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. [Policy Provision in Two-Tier Countries] Two-tier countries: Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Iceland, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Turkey. Citation Schakel, Arjan H. (2009) “Explaining Policy Allocation over Governmental Tiers by Identity and Functionality,” Acta Politica, 44, 4: 385–409. 2010 impact factor: 0.706; 2010 5-year impact factor: 1.194 (Political Science). [link] [pdf] Expert Survey on Externalities and Scale Effects The expert survey measures two functional characterisics of policies. We have asked 36 scholars with an expertise in public administration, fiscal federalism, public finance, and local government to indicate which jurisdiction should provide a policy when one has only to consider economic externalities and scale effects. Economic externalities are the positive or negative economic effects of a policy for individuals in other jurisdictions. Efficient policy should encompass the people economically affected by the policy. For example, defense policy protects all those who live in a country, while street cleaning affects only those in a particular locality. Scale economies refer to the decreased cost of policy provision per unit as the scale of provision increases. Efficient policy should reap the available economies of scale for providing a policy. Defense policy is most efficient when a single army deters threats to all those who live in a country, while street cleaning can be efficiently organized at a local level. We asked the experts to indicate the functional optimal allocation of policy provision taks across government tiers for 34 policies. The experts could choose among five jurisdicions and were allowed to choose one or all jurisdictions. Please consult my article in Governance for more information (e.g. reliability, structural error, validity) about the expert survey. [Expert Survey Summary] The summary file provides the percentage of experts who indicated that a jurisdiction should prodivde the policy when one only considers scale effects and externalities. [Expert Survey] This file gives the orginial expert survey on externalities and scale effects which was sent to the experts. Citation Schakel, Arjan H. (2010) “Explaining Regional and Local Government: An Empirical Test of the Decentralization Theorem,” Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions, 23, 2: 331–355. 2010 impact factor: 1.774; 2010 5-year impact factor: 2.046 (Political Science). [link] [pdf] [appendices]