Per què a Espanya es fan tantes infraestructures que no s'usen?: I, s'hi pot fer alguna cosa?

En els darrers anys han esclatat les diverses bombolles que s'havien generat a Espanya durant la dècada meravellosa, entre les quals han destacat la del deute -sobretot privat- i el seu correlat immobiliari, la de les energies renovables -particularment en modalitats solars-, i la d'infraestructures de transport. Totes han tingut les seves expressions plàstiques, des dels habitatges buits i les promocions deixades sense acabar, fins a les infraestructures noves de trinca sense ús, o amb un ús molt inferior a la seva capacitat

Estat plurinacional i infraestructures

Les economies madures tendeixen a invertir menys en nova construcció i molt més en manteniment i gestió. Això és particularment important en el cas d'Espanya, que a més de ser una economia madura presenta un gran excés de capacitat general en tots els modes interurbans, i particularment en els corredors radials. El punt clau en una reorganització de la política d'infraestructures en un hipotètic estat que es reconegui a sí mateix com plurinacional és la transferència de la gestió a les unitats integrants de la federació, i en alguns casos també de la titularitat. En aquesta línia, en aquest treball es presenta un nou model de política d'infraestructures per a una Espanya diferent, que aprèn de les experiències i lliçons de fórmules ja aplicades a parts d'Europa i els EUA

Against the mainstream: Nazi privatization in 1930s Germany

The Great Depression spurred State ownership in Western capitalist countries. Germany was no exception; the last governments of the Weimar Republic took over firms in diverse sectors. Later, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership and public services to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in the Western capitalist countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s. Privatization in Nazi Germany was also unique in transferring to private hands the delivery f public services previously provided by government. The firms and the services transferred to private ownership belonged to diverse sectors. Privatization was part of an intentional policy with multiple objectives and was not ideologically driven. As in many recent privatizations, particularly within the European Union, strong financial restrictions were a central motivation. In addition, privatization was used as a political tool to enhance support for the government and for the Nazi Party.Arrel de la Gran Depressió la propietat pública va créixer al països capitalistes occidentals. Alemanya no va ser una excepció; els darrers governs de la República de Weimar van agafar el control d¿empreses en diferent sectors. Més tard, el règim Nazi va transferir propietat pública i serveis públics al sector privat. Amb això, els Nazis es situaven contra les tendències habituals als països capitalistes occidentals, puix cap altre país va reprivatitzar sistemàticament en la dècada dels 1930s. La privatització a l¿Alemanya Nazi també va ser única en la mesura en què es va transferir a organitzacions privades la producció de serveis públics que abans havien estat produïts per l¿administració pública. Les empreses i serveis transferits al sector privat pertanyen a diferents sectors. La privatització va ser part d¿una política intencional amb múltiples objectius, i no va tenir un caràcter marcadament ideològic. Igual que en moltes privatitzacions recents, especialment a la Unió Europea, la motivació principal procedia de les fortes restriccions financeres dels pressupostos públics. A més, la privatització va ser usada com un instrument polític per augmentar el suport al govern i al Partit Nazi

Infrastructure and nation building: The regulation and financing of network transportation infrastructures in Spain (1720-2010)

This paper analyzes Spanish infrastructure policy since the early 1700s: Road building in the eighteenth century, railway creation and expansion in the nineteenth, motorway expansion in the twentieth, and high speed rail development in the twenty-first. The analysis reveals a long-term pattern, in which infrastructure policy in Spain has been driven not by the requirements of commerce and economic activity, but rather by the desire to centralize transportation around the country’s political capital

Public versus private water delivery, remunicipalization and water tariffs

Evidence regarding the drivers and the effects of remunicipalization remains in short supply. In this paper we exploit existing analyses of earlier historical phases of the remunicipalization of water delivery services to disentangle the role played by a range of different factors - most notably overpricing and corruption under private ownership - in the decision to remunicipalize these services. Additionally, we discuss what the effects of remunicipalization might be in the light of the, as yet, somewhat sketchy evidence. In the specific case of water tariffs, our analysis casts some doubt on whether the initial price reductions introduced following remunicipalization are sustainable over time

Does inter-municipal cooperation really reduce delivery costs? An empirical evaluation of the role of scale economies, transaction costs, and governance arragements [WP]

Inter-municipal cooperation in public service delivery has attracted the interest of local authorities seeking to reform public service provision in recent years. Cost saving has been among the most important drivers of such cooperation. However, the empirical results from the literature on inter- municipal cooperation and its associated costs offer contradictory outcomes in this regard. The boom in empirical studies addressing this question over the last decade offers insights into the factors that might explain the discrepancy in reported outcomes. With this objective in mind, we conduct a meta-regression analysis that considers all existing multivariate empirical studies of this matter. We formulate several hypotheses regarding scale economies, transaction costs, and governance of cooperation, based on the prior theoretical literature. While we find no clear indications of the role played by transaction costs in the relationship between cooperation and service delivery costs, we find strong evidence that population size and governance are significant in explaining the relationship. Specifically, small populations and delegation to a higher tier of government seem to offer cost advantages to municipalities when opting to cooperate. Furthermore, we build an extension of our model by disentangling service-related transaction costs based on asset specificity and ease of measurability of the service

Evaluation of the Impact of Bus Rapid Transit on Air Pollution

Mexico City’s bus rapid transit (BRT) network, Metrobus, was introduced in an attempt to reduce congestion, increase city transport efficiency and cut air polluting emissions. In June 2005, the first BRT line in the metropolitan area began service. We use differences-in-differences and quantile regression techniques in undertaking the first quantitative policy impact assessment of the BRT system on air polluting emissions. The air pollutants considered are carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOX), particulate matter of less than 2.5 μm (PM 2.5), particulate matter of less than 10 μm (PM10), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The ex-post analysis uses real field data from air quality monitoring stations for periods before and after BRT implementation. Results show that BRT constitutes an effective environmental policy, reducing emissions of CO, NOX, PM2.5 and PM10

Tax me, but don’t drown me in regulations : Understanding differences in corruption across the countries of Europe

Differences in corruption perception across the countries of Europe are marked and persistent over time. This study seeks to explain these differences in the countries of both the European Union and the European Free Trade Association during 2007–2017. The core hypothesis is that the style of government intervention in the economy –rather than the size of government– is the main explanatory factor for the differences. To test this hypothesis, the empirical analysis disentangles the effects of the two main government tools for intervention in the economy: taxation and regulation. The main result is that the fiscal burden does not consistently present a significant relationship with corruption. In contrast, the regulatory burden associated with excessive red tape is a strong driver of corruption, because a consistent and significant positive association is found. Furthermore, differences in legal origins, history, democratic experience and several economic factors contribute to explaining differences between European countries

Disentangling the separate and combined effects of privatization and cooperation on local government service delivery

Inter-municipal cooperation is often regarded as an alternative to privatizing local public services. But cooperation and privatization can also be combined into a composite reform package, where several municipalities jointly issue contracts relating to multiple jurisdictions. Evaluating these ‘hybrid’ reforms rests on disentangling the separate and combined effects of cooperation and privatization. This we undertake for the case of solid waste collection in the Spanish region of Catalonia, using environmental protection as our focal performance metric. Drawing on two waves of data (for 2000 and 2019) for a sample of 186 municipalities that mix public and private with cooperative and autonomous service delivery, we show that superior performance among reformed municipalities is initially confined to those cooperations involving public production. But latterly, any form of cooperation, using public or private production, resulted in significant gains. This reinforces the need for evaluators to isolate the (changing) ‘active ingredient’ in hybrid reforms

Effects of unit-based pricing on the waste collection demand: a meta - regression analysis

We perform a meta - analysis of 21 studies that estimate the elasticity of the price of waste collection demand upon waste quantities, a prior literature review having revealed that the price elasticity differs markedly. Based on a meta - regression with a total of 65 observations, we find no indication that municipal data give higher estimates for price elasticities than those associated with household data. Furthermore, there is no evidence that treating prices as exogenous underestimates the price elasticity. We find that much of the variation can be explained by sample size, the use of a weight - based as opposed to a volume - based pricing system, and the pricing of compostable waste. We also show that price elasticities determined in the USA and point estimations of elasticities are more elastic, but these effects are not robust to the changing of model specifications. Finally, our tests show that there is no evidence of publication bias while there is some evidence of the existence of genuine empirical effect