Anastasiia Vlasenko (New York University). Fiscal Decentralization and Local Spending: Evidence from Ukraine’s Voluntary Amalgamation Reform

When governments shift power and resources from the center to local communities, do citizens actually benefit? The lecture explores that question through one of the largest decentralization reforms in Eastern Europe: Ukraine’s 2015 voluntary amalgamation reform. The reform encouraged municipalities to merge into larger, more autonomous territorial communities, giving local governments unprecedented control over their budgets, personnel, and spending priorities. Drawing on annual data from Ukrainian hromadas between 2012 and 2020 and using a staggered difference-in-differences design, lecturer examined how greater fiscal and political autonomy reshaped local public spending. The results reveal that decentralization did not produce an immediate surge in government expenditure. Instead, its effects accumulated over time, with real local spending increasing by approximately 5-8% within two years of amalgamation.

Anastasiia Vlasenko is a Visiting Assistant Professor at New York University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Politics, the Department of Russian & Slavic Studies, and the Program in International Relations. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from Florida State University (2022 and 2018), an M.A. in International Relations from New York University (2016), an M.Sc. in European Affairs from Lund University (2013), and a B.A. in Political Science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (2011). Dr. Vlasenko’s primary research focuses on electoral politics and democratization, with a specialization in the politics of Ukraine. She also studies decentralization, local governance, and protest, with additional interests in transitional period reforms, propaganda, legislative politics, and electoral forecasting. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Politics and PS: Political Science & Politics. At NYU, Columbia University, and Florida State University, she has taught courses on comparative politics, public policy, quantitative methods, Ukrainian politics, and post-Soviet studies.

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