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Territory and Health: Perspectives from Economics and Political Science

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Federalism and Decentralization in European Health and Social Care

Abstract

It is tempting to talk about “decentralization” as if it were simple: a technical decision to grant more authority to regional or local governments, with the objective of aligning incentives, power, and information a bit more efficiently.But decentralization is far from simple. In fact, it is not a policy, it is not just a technocratic decision, and it does not have reliable and easily predictable effects. In effect, one of the reasons why health policy specialists, economists, and political scientists have had such difficulty with the effects of decentralization on health policy and, more generally, on the welfare state is that they have paid too little attention to the specific institutional pathways in which decentralization does and does not matter.

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Authors
  1. Joan Costa-Font
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  2. Scott L. Greer
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom

    Joan Costa-Font (Reader in Political Economy) (Reader in Political Economy)

  2. Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan, USA

    Scott L. Greer (Associate Professor) (Associate Professor)

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© 2013 Joan Costa-Font and Scott L. Greer

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Costa-Font, J., Greer, S.L. (2013). Territory and Health: Perspectives from Economics and Political Science. In: Costa-Font, J., Greer, S.L. (eds) Federalism and Decentralization in European Health and Social Care. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291875_2

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