CENTRALIZATION AND GOVERNMENT COMPETITION

This paper examines the relationship between government size and fiscal centralization with specific focus on the separate influences of centralism and fragmentation on the size of the public sector in the United States. The empirical findings at the national level provide support to the hypothesis that fiscal decentralization leads to a smaller government. The findings at the state and local levels, however, show no empirical relationship between government size and the degree of centralization. © 1991, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.