Congratulations to four AYSPS faculty, affiliates, and alumni—Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, Charles R. Hankla, Raúl Alberto Ponce Rodríguez, and Eunice Heredia-Ortiz—who have co-won the 2022 Elinor Ostrom Award for Best Article Published in the Journal of Theoretical Politics: “The politics of fiscal federalism: Building a stronger decentralization theorem.”
The article explores how party structures can condition the benefits of decentralization in modern democracies. In particular, it discusses the interaction of two political institutions: democratic (de)centralization and party (non)integration. The article’s authors incorporate these institutions into the strong decentralization theorem to examine when the decentralized provision of public services will dominate centralized provision even in the presence of inter-jurisdictional spillovers.
Jorge Martinez-Vazquez is a professor emeritus at AYSPS. He has published over 20 books and numerous articles, and he directed many fiscal reform projects worldwide. Charles R. Hankla is an associate professor of political science at Georgia State University, whose research is in the fields of comparative and international political economy, particularly political institutions as they relate to fiscal decentralization, budgeting, trade policy, and industrial policy. Raúl Alberto Ponce Rodríguez received his Ph.D. in economics in 2006 from AYSPS and is now a professor in the Department of Economics at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Eunice Heredia-Ortiz also received her Ph.D. in economics in 2006 from AYSPS and is a public finance expert with broad experience in economic and fiscal policy, public financial management, fiscal decentralization, and financing policy in health and education sectors in developing and transition countries.
