Is having a decentralized system beneficial to a country’s economy? Does the situation change during times of crisis? Can one country be singled out as being a model of decentralization? These are some of the questions addressed in this interview with the economists Frederico Finan (University of California – Berkeley) and Eckhard Janeba (University of Mannheim), both experts in Political Economy and speakers at the V Workshop on Fiscal Federalism: The Political Economy of Decentralization (13-14 June), organized by the IEB. The meeting, held in Barcelona, brought together sixty researchers from around the world, in order to analyze such questions as tax competition, local government cooperation, the allocation of transfers and their effects, etc. The researchers also analyzed the experiences of a number of countries, including Italy, Switzerland, Indonesia and Germany.

Each year the Workshop on Fiscal Federalism, organized by the Barcelona Economics Institute, brings together specialist researchers in this field from around the world to share their research results and methodologies.