@article{3221121, title = "Measuring Local Autonomy", author = "Ladner, A. and Keuffer, N. and Baldersheim, H. and Hlepas, N. and Swianiewicz, P. and Steyvers, K. and Navarro, C.", journal = "Governance and Public Management", year = "2019", pages = "37-74", publisher = "Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.", doi = "10.1007/978-3-319-95642-8_2", abstract = "This chapter develops a comprehensive and empirically applicable concept to measure the autonomy of local government in the 39 European countries covered. To this end, we first discuss already existing measurements and typologies of local autonomy and decentralisation. We argue that existing data on fiscal decentralisation only tells part of the story and does not capture the role and discretion of local government in an adequate manner. Subsequently, we present our methodology to measure local autonomy, the coding scheme we developed to code the different countries as well as the different variables used. The chapter contains also information about the organisation of the whole project, the different experts involved and the method applied to gather comparative data. © 2019, The Author(s)." }