In this paper, we estimate the efficiency of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Ghana, and investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of local public goods and services delivery by MMDAs. Using data from composite budgets of all 216 MMDAs, we employ both non-parametric and parametric frontier methods to carry out the study. The results with regard to our two indicators of fiscal decentralization indicate that fiscal autonomy proxied by MMDAs’ internally generated funds as a share of their total revenue has a positive influence on the efficiency of MMDAs whilst vertical imbalance—a high share of central government grants in MMDAs’ total expenditure—does not improve the delivery of local goods and services by MMDAs in Ghana. The findings indicate a clear signal to policy managers to prioritize support to MMDAs in the mobilization of internally generated revenue.

中文翻译：

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加纳地方政府的财政分权和公共服务提供效率

在本文中，我们估计了加纳大都会、市政和地区议会 (MMDA) 的效率，并调查了财政分权对 MMDA 提供的地方公共产品和服务效率的影响。使用来自所有 216 个 MMDA 的复合预算的数据，我们采用非参数和参数前沿方法来进行研究。关于财政分权的两个指标的结果表明，由 MMDA 内部产生的资金作为其总收入的一部分代表的财政自主权对 MMDA 的效率有积极影响，而纵向不平衡——中央政府补助在MMDA 的总支出——并没有改善 MMDA 在加纳提供的当地商品和服务。