By bringing decision making closer to people, decentralization is expected to improve governance and service delivery
outcomes. Yet, the empirical evidence on the impact of decentralization on macroeconomic performance and public sector size
presents a mixed picture. However, the findings of cross-country studies in the literature are sensitive to the way decentralization
is defined, and how its extent and impact are measured. This article avoids the unwanted effects of incomparability and
aggregation in cross-country analysis. We use a unique panel data set from 183 villages in Pakistan to analyze the impact of
decentralization reforms implemented in 2001 on the provision of services—street paving, construction of water canals,
sanitation sewer lines, and school facilities. Our results show that the magnitude of provision of all services increased
significantly following decentralization reforms. We further show that the four services are impacted differently and service
delivery improvement is not uniform, but not in ways that conform to the hypotheses of patronage theory.