and

The decentralization of public services from central to local control is a major feature of institutional innovation throughout the world. The main argument in support of decentralization is that it brings decisions closer to the people, alleviating information asymmetries, agency costs, and problems of collective decision. However, decentralization can also degrade provision in the presence of positive spillovers, lack of technical capabilities by local governments, or capture of low-level administrators by local elites. Moreover, decentralization may increase inequality if central provision guarantees similar provision across regions and social groups, whereas some groups are disadvantaged under decentralization. Given these theoretical ambiguities, the superiority of either centralized or decentralized provision of public services is an empirical question. And, despite its importance, there is little rigorous evaluation of decentralization efforts. We fill this gap by evaluating the impact of secondary school decentralization on student performance in Argentina. We study the overall effect of school decentralization on student performance and analyze the presence of differential impacts across areas. Our results show that decentralization had, on average, a positive and significant impact on student performance