This thesis explores the political economy aspects of the provision of local public goods by higher levels of government. Chapter 1 focuses on local public goods as instruments for special interest politics at the supra-local level, with an emphasis on public infrastructure. To capture the implications of long-run relationships between political parties and their loyal supporters, I set out a dynamic probabilistic voting model which predicts that the geographic pattern of spending depends on the way the government balances long-run `machine politics' considerations with the more immediate concern to win over swing voters. To assess the empirical relevance of both forces, I analyse rich data on road spending from a panel of electoral districts in Québec. Empirical results exploiting the province's linguistic fragmentation provide robust evidence that partisan loyalty is a key driver of the geographic allocation of spending. Chapter 2 proposes a theoretical framework to analyse the coexistence of multiple tiers of government in local public good provision. I study the effects of such partial decentralization on accountability using a two-period political agency model, in which two levels of government are involved in public good provision and voters are imperfectly informed about each government's contribution to the public good. The model predicts that the net effect of a departure from complete centralization (or decentralization) balances the benefits of vertical complementarity against the loss of accountability following from imperfect information and detrimental vertical interactions. Chapter 3 investigates the impact of partial decentralization on local electoral accountability in the context of California's school finance system. I exploit the peculiarities California's school finance system and the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to estimate the extent to which politicians are punished or rewarded for observed policy outcomes, and how this channel is affected by the degree of centralization. Results show that voters are responsive to differences in dropout rates and pupil-teacher ratios, and that incumbents are less likely to be reelected when a district's degree of centralization is high. Increased federal involvement after 2001 is associated with sharper local electoral accountability.

This thesis explores the political economy aspects of the provision of local public goods by higher levels of government. Chapter 1 focuses on local public goods as instruments for special interest politics at the supra-local level, with an emphasis on public infrastructure. To capture the implications of long-run relationships between political parties and their loyal supporters, I set out a dynamic probabilistic voting model which predicts that the geographic pattern of spending depends on the way the government balances long-run `machine politics' considerations with the more immediate concern to win over swing voters. To assess the empirical relevance of both forces, I analyse rich data on road spending from a panel of electoral districts in Québec. Empirical results exploiting the province's linguistic fragmentation provide robust evidence that partisan loyalty is a key driver of the geographic allocation of spending. Chapter 2 proposes a theoretical framework to analyse the coexistence of multiple tiers of government in local public good provision. I study the effects of such partial decentralization on accountability using a two-period political agency model, in which two levels of government are involved in public good provision and voters are imperfectly informed about each government's contribution to the public good. The model predicts that the net effect of a departure from complete centralization (or decentralization) balances the benefits of vertical complementarity against the loss of accountability following from imperfect information and detrimental vertical interactions. Chapter 3 investigates the impact of partial decentralization on local electoral accountability in the context of California's school finance system. I exploit the peculiarities California's school finance system and the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to estimate the extent to which politicians are punished or rewarded for observed policy outcomes, and how this channel is affected by the degree of centralization. Results show that voters are responsive to differences in dropout rates and pupil-teacher ratios, and that incumbents are less likely to be reelected when a district's degree of centralization is high. Increased federal involvement after 2001 is associated with sharper local electoral accountability.

Ayant pour ambition de « rendre la parole » aux populations déshéritées de la ville de Pikine, banlieue de la capitale sénégalaise, Débat local est l’émission politique interactive de la radio communautaire Air’Jeunes fondée à la fin des années quatre-vingt-dix à l’initiative des associations de jeunes de la région dakaroise avec le soutien d’une grande ONG canadienne. Cette thèse étudie les usages de cette émission par les citoyens locaux dans les trois domaines principaux où les militants et promoteurs de la démocratie participative s’attachent à développer des dispositifs d’action citoyenne visant à corriger les défauts et insuffisances du gouvernement représentatif au regard de l’idéal démocratique : la place des citoyens dans le système de production des biens publics locaux, les relations symboliques entre les élus et les électeurs et l’espace public de débat sur les politiques publiques et l’action des représentants. À partir d’une étude de terrain à caractère ethnographique menée en trois séquences de 2006 à 2011 dans les studios de la radio et sur les lieux d’écoute de l’émission, il apparaît que si l’émission a permis à des formes de contestation du pouvoir local de s’exprimer publiquement sans médiation, la réalisation du projet originel de l’émission s’est heurtée à un contexte local défavorable marqué par l’absence de moyens donnés aux élus locaux pour exercer leurs compétences récemment décentralisées et par un journalisme politique local polarisé autour de deux formes dominantes laissant peu de place au débat argumenté : le journalisme antagonique des grands groupes privés et de la petite presse du secteur informel et le journalisme légitimiste du groupe public. En dépit de leur attachement militant au projet, les responsables de la radio et les animateurs de l’émission dont les origines sociales et les formations scolaires les tenaient très éloignés des formes de consommation des biens informationnels des Pikinois ainsi que des activités des associations informelles de quartier très vivantes dans la banlieue dakaroise ont progressivement cédé aux forces d’attraction qu’exerçaient les radios privées ordinaires sur leur vision de leur avenir professionnel personnel et, corrélativement, sur leur pratique journalistique. / Aspiring to “give a voice” to the poor people of Pikine, a suburb of the Senegalese capital, “Local Debate” is an interactive political programme of the community radio Air’Jeunes, created in the late nineties at the initiative of youth associations in the Dakar region with support from a major Canadian NGO. This thesis explores the use of this programme by local citizens in three main areas where activists and proponents of participatory democracy are committed to developing citizen action mechanisms, aiming to correct the defects and shortcomings under the democratic ideal of representative government: the role of citizens in the production system of local public goods, symbolic relationships between elected leaders and electors, and the public space for debate on public policies and the actions of representatives. Based on an ethnographic field study conducted in three phases between 2006 and 2011 in the radio production studio and the show’s listening sites, it appears that, even if the programme has enabled forms of contestation of local authority to be voiced publicly without mediation, the realisation of the original project faced an unfavourable local context marked by the lack of resources given to local officials to exercise their newly decentralised powers and a local political journalism polarised around two dominant forms, leaving little room for debate: the antagonistic journalism of big private groups and small informal press, and the legitimising journalism of the public service group. Despite their militant commitment to the project, radio staff and hosts whose social origins and educational backgrounds distance them from the forms of consumption of information goods and activities of Pikine’s inhabitants, as well as the dynamic activities of informal neighbourhood associations in the suburbs of Dakar, have gradually yielded to forces of attraction exercised by mainstream private radios, influencing their vision of their professional future and, in turn, their journalistic practice .

本研究探討包括土地稅之地方租稅結構，在經濟面的最適條件，並論平均地權的理想、土地利用的經濟效率與公平，能否經由我國現行中央和地方租稅的劃分形態下之土地稅制實現，與土地稅制度之改進等問題。 從人口分派至各地的效率觀點，地方稅制之安排，應使個人不論定居於任何行政區，均可獲得相同的「財政淨效益」。如地方公共財具有敵對性，地租單一稅並不能有效內化移民對地方財政之衝擊。另一方面，此一概念也與國民之財政待遇水平公平的條件一致。從總體之經濟效率與公平角度，地方自主之稅制選擇，至少不應擴大地方間財政淨效益的差異。 本研究試以政治成本最小化的模式，分析我國地方政府對土地稅制之選擇，結果未能顯著解釋台灣省各縣（市）在公告地價與公告現值相對調整幅度差異。同時地方財政自主性不足，地方土地稅努力也與其所獲補助顯著負相關。由於土地政策及國民福利有其全國之一致性，而地方財政有其特殊性，設計地方土地稅制應考慮全國之標準及因地制宜。為消除關於土地增值稅租稅性質及稅收歸屬之爭議，本研究建議雙軌課稅制度。 / This study focuses on the economic optimum conditions of local tax structure which includes land tax.　Such issues as whether the ideal of Equalization of Land Rights and the efficiency and equity of land use could be realized through the land tax system under the current tax assignment between central and local government in Taiwan, and ways of improving land tax are studied as well. From the viewpoint of distributing total population across jurisdictions efficiently, the arrangement of local tax should make one, regardless of which jurisdiction he resides in, receive the same “net fiscal residuum”(NFC).　If local public goods are rival, single local tax to land rent can not effectively internalize the fiscal impact brought by immigrants.　On the other hand, equal NFC is consistent with conditions for the horizontal equity of fiscal treatment to citizens.　With a view to the entire economic efficiency and equity, the tax choices made by local governments at least should not widen differences of NFC between jurisdictions. In this study, the model of minimum political cost has been used to analyze how local governments in Taiwan choose between types of land taxes. But the result of multiple regression could not explain significantly the discrepancy of relative ratio of adjusting rate of Announced Land Price to adjusting rate of Announced Land Current Value between local governments in Taiwan province.　In the meantime, the local fiscal position lacks independence.　Local land tax efforts are significantly negative correlation with the received grants.　Because it’s necessary for the national consistency of land policy and social welfare, plus the particularity of local finance, the national standard and district discrepancy should be taken into consideration in designing local land tax system. In order to eliminate controversies about the characteristics of Land Value Increment Tax and where the tax revenue belongs to, a parallel tax system is suggested.