Abstract
Does EU funding improve local state capacity? We focus on two specific types of state capacity, namely (a) the ability to provide information to third parties and (b) to discriminate between different kinds of inquiries. Because the EU’s structural funds are distributed through a competitive mechanism and incentivize expansions in administrative personnel, our theory predicts that high levels of EU funding bring about a higher bureaucratic capacity equilibrium. Empirically, we analyze the effect of structural funds on local government capacity in the largest recipient country: post-communist Poland. Through a randomized survey with more than 2400 municipal administrations, we find that administrations that have benefited more from EU funding, have developed higher levels of discrimination capacity. Yet we find no evidence for higher information provision capacity.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
