Political decentralisation and regional poverty in the EU
There is a growing trend for central governments to transfer political authority to subnational tiers of government, known as political decentralisation, as well as a growing and widely accepted recognition of the important role of governments in reducing poverty. The purpose of this project is to examine whether and how an increase in political decentralisation (which is a regional policy instrument) reduces European regional poverty rate and social exclusion (which are regional policy aims), after controlling for some economic, social, political and geographical charactersitics of the European regions. The association between regional policy instruments and regional policy aims crucially depends on many other policies, such as policy effectiveness, policies for private development, and policies for innovation. The outcomes of this project will be of relevance to researchers and policymakers from a wide range of disciplines and who are interested in seeing whether and how political decentralisation could act as an instrument for lower regional poverty levels.
“I am very excited to be a recipient of the prestigious MeRSA grant. I am very interested in empirically examine political decentralisation outcomes. This award will help me to examine whether and how the regional government of a European country has the capacity to reduce regional poverty and social exclusion. I trust that this grant will be a stimulus and encouraging signal for the advancement of my research”.