Decentralization in Africa and the nature of local governments' competition: evidence from Benin

Without denying particular dimensions of the decentralisation in Sub-Saharan countries, this paper applies standard reasoning from the fiscal federalism literature to a developing country and tests the existence of strategic interactions among local Beninese governments, called 'communes'. We first propose a two-jurisdiction model of public expenditure interactions, considering a constrained Nash equilibrium to capture the extreme poverty of some communes. We show that spillovers among jurisdictions involve strategic behaviours of local officials who have sufficient levels of fiscal resources. Second, by estimating a spatial lag model, our analysis provides evidence for the presence of strategic interactions in Benin, contingent on 'communes fiscal autonomy. Such interactions arise among communes which are geographically or ethnically close. We also highlight both an opportunistic behaviour of local governments before local elections and an effect of partisan affiliations. This African democracy appears to be as concerned as developed democracies with strategic fiscal interactions.Fiscal interactions;benin;decentralisation;local government;dynamic panel data

Decentralization in Africa and the nature of local governments' competition: evidence from Benin

Without denying particular dimensions of the decentralisation in Sub-Saharan countries, this paper applies standard reasoning from the fiscal federalism literature to a developing country and tests the existence of strategic interactions among local Beninese governments, called 'communes'. We first propose a two-jurisdiction model of public expenditure interactions, considering a constrained Nash equilibrium to capture the extreme poverty of some communes. We show that spillovers among jurisdictions involve strategic behaviours of local officials who have sufficient levels of fiscal resources. Second, by estimating a spatial lag model, our analysis provides evidence for the presence of strategic interactions in Benin, contingent on 'communes fiscal autonomy. Such interactions arise among communes which are geographically or ethnically close. We also highlight both an opportunistic behaviour of local governments before local elections and an effect of partisan affiliations. This African democracy appears to be as concerned as developed democracies with strategic fiscal interactions.Fiscal interactions, benin, decentralisation, local government, dynamic panel data

Does Decentralization Facilitate Access to Poverty-Related Services? Evidence from Benin

We study the effect of decentralization on the access to some poverty-related public services in Benin. Compiling panel data from local governments' accounts and from surveys on 18,000 Beninese households performed in 2006 and 2007, our study suggests that decentralization has a positive overall effect on access to basic services. However, this effect appears to be nonmonotone following an inverted U-shaped curve. It varies according to local jurisdictions' wealth and to the nature of basic services. Decentralization in Benin contributes positively to the reduction of poverty by improving the average access to poverty-related services. However, the devil is in the details, as decentralization seems to increase inequality among local governments in terms of access. Another result relying on the success of decentralization in Benin is the prioritization of basic services, which differs among local governments according to their wealth. While the poorest jurisdictions neglect primary education, focusing more on access to drinking water, the richest ones get less attention to sewage services, since these are already provided at a sufficiently high level

Decentralization in Africa and the nature of local governments' competition: evidence from Benin

Without denying particular dimensions of the decentralisation in Sub-Saharan countries, this paper applies standard reasoning from the fiscal federalism literature to a developing country and tests the existence of strategic interactions among local Beninese governments, called 'communes'. We first propose a two-jurisdiction model of public expenditure interactions, considering a constrained Nash equilibrium to capture the extreme poverty of some communes. We show that spillovers among jurisdictions involve strategic behaviours of local officials who have sufficient levels of fiscal resources. Second, by estimating a spatial lag model, our analysis provides evidence for the presence of strategic interactions in Benin, contingent on 'communes fiscal autonomy. Such interactions arise among communes which are geographically or ethnically close. We also highlight both an opportunistic behaviour of local governments before local elections and an effect of partisan affiliations. This African democracy appears to be as concerned as developed democracies with strategic fiscal interactions

Decentralization in Africa and the Nature of Local Governments

Decentralization has been put forward as a powerful tool to reduce poverty and improve governance in Africa. The aim of this paper is to study the existence, and identify the nature, of spillovers resulting from local expenditure policies. These spillovers impact the efficiency of decentralization. We develop a two-jurisdiction model of public expenditure, which differs from existing literature by capturing the extreme poverty of some local governments in developing countries through a generalized notion of the Nash equilibrium, namely, the constrained Nash equilibrium. We show how and under which conditions spillovers among jurisdictions induce strategic behaviours from local officials. By estimating a spatial lag model for a panel data analysis of the 77 communes in Benin from 2002 to 2008, our empirical analysis establishes the existence of the strategic complementarity of jurisdictions' public spending. Thus, any increase in the local public provision in one jurisdiction should induce a similar variation among the neighbouring jurisdictions. This result raises the issue of coordination among local governments, and more broadly, it questions the effeciency of decentralisation in developing countries in line with Oates' theorem

Decentralisation in Africa and Fiscal Competition Evidence from Benin

Without denying particular dimensions of the decentralisation in Sub-Saharan countries, this paper applies standard reasoning from the fiscal federalism literature to a developing country and tests the existence of strategic interactions among local Beninese governments, called ‘communes’. We first propose a two-jurisdiction model of public expenditure interactions, considering a constrained Nash equilibrium to capture the extreme poverty of some communes. We show that spillovers among jurisdictions involve strategic behaviours of local officials who have sufficient levels of fiscal resources. Second, by estimating a spatial lag model, our analysis provides evidence for the presence of strategic interactions in Benin, contingent on communes’ fiscal autonomy. Such interactions arise among communes which are geographically or ethnically close. We also highlight both an opportunistic behaviour of local governments before local elections and an effect of partisan affiliations. This African democracy appears to be as concerned as developed democracies with strategic fiscal interactions. Cet article applique la théorie du fédéralisme budgétaire à l'analyse du processus de décentralisation d'un pays en développement (le Bénin) et teste l'existence d'interactions stratégiques parmi les juridictions locales du Bénin. À partir d'un modèle de concurrence budgétaire à 2 juridictions, nous définissons les conditions d'un équilibre de Nash contraint pour capturer les effets d'extrême pauvreté de certaines communes. Nous montrons que des externalités entre communes impliquent des comportements stratégiques des décideurs publics locaux pour ceux disposant de ressources budgétaires suffisantes. Ensuite, en estimant un modèle d'interactions spatiales, nous montrons la présence d'interactions stratégiques pour les communes du Bénin, contingentes à leur autonomie budgétaire. De telles interactions émergent parmi les communes géographiquement et ethniquement proches. Par ailleurs, ces interactions surviennent dans le cadre d'un cycle électoral opportuniste de dépenses publiques et sont sensibles à l'affiliation partisane des maires. En conclusion, le Bénin apparaît aussi touché que les démocraties développées par des comportements stratégiques en dépenses publiques locales.Fiscal interactions, Benin, decentralisation, local government, dynamic panel data, interactions budgétaires, Bénin, décentralisation, gouvernements locaux, économétrie spatiale

Memory CD8+ T cells mediate antibacterial immunity via CCL3 activation of TNF/ROI+ phagocytes

Cytolysis, interferon γ and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) α secretion are major effector mechanisms of memory CD8+ T cells that are believed to be required for immunological protection in vivo. By using mutants of the intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes, we found that none of these effector activities is sufficient to protect against secondary infection with wild-type (WT) bacteria. We demonstrated that CCL3 derived from reactivated memory CD8+ T cells is required for efficient killing of WT bacteria. CCL3 induces a rapid TNF-α secretion by innate inflammatory mononuclear phagocytic cells (MPCs), which further promotes the production of radical oxygen intermediates (ROIs) by both MPCs and neutrophils. ROI generation is the final bactericidal mechanism involved in L. monocytogenes clearance. These results therefore uncover two levels of regulation of the antibacterial secondary protective response: (a) an antigen-dependent phase in which memory CD8+ T cells are reactivated and control the activation of the innate immune system, and (b) an antigen-independent phase in which the MPCs coordinate innate immunity and promote the bactericidal effector activities. In this context, CCL3-secreting memory CD8+ T cells are able to mediate “bystander” killing of an unrelated pathogen upon antigen-specific reactivation, a mechanism that may be important for the design of therapeutic vaccines