Current research of fiscal decentralization evaluates the level of decentralization and the impacts on the fiscal effort of municipalities by measuring it or by observing the impact in terms of revenue collection. These studies are important but they do not capture the behaviour and challenges that the local administrative structure faces given the policy design and existing administrative resources. In contrast, this dissertation explores the impacts that the fiscal decentralization process has had on the fiscal effort of local administrative structures. The analysis is based on...