Do regions with more competences perform better than others? Are countries with a higher degree of decentralisation economically more successful than centrally governed countries? The aim of the study “From Subsidiarity to Success: The Impact of Decentralisation on Economic Growth”, commissioned by the Assembly of European Regions (AER) and produced by BAK Basel Economics, is to seek links between the degree of autonomy of a region, or the degree of decentralisation within a country, and economic development.

The project has been divided into two parts. The following summarises the first part which contains the methodology, explains how the Decentralisation Index has been drawn up and the Index family synthesized, and presents results of the descriptive analysis and the country profiles. The second part deals with the impact of decentralisation on economic performance, explored through econometric analysis.