Environmental decentralization and political centralization

In this paper, we investigate how political institutions affect policy outcomes. In particular, does the level of political centralization affect the outcome of environmental decentralization? We use a cross section of up to 110 countries and a propensity score estimation approach. We find that political centralization, measured by the strength of national level political parties, increases the stringency of environmental policies set under decentralized regimes. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.