Local governments' efficiency: A systematic literature review—part I

The efficient management of the available resources in local governments has been a topic of high interest in the field of public sector. We provide an extensive and comprehensive review of the existing literature on local governments’ efficiency from a global point of view, covering all articles from 1990 to August 2016. This paper is the first of two. It covers the basic aspects related to local governments’ efficiency measurement not taking into account the effect of environmental conditions. First, we show a detailed overview of the studies investigating public sector efficiency across various countries, comparing the data and samples employed, and the main results obtained. Second, we describe which techniques have been used for measuring efficiency in the context of local governments. Third, we summarize the inputs and outputs used. Finally, we discuss some operative directions and considerations for further research in the field.Isabel Narbón Perpiñá has received funding from Universitat Jaume I (PREDOC/2013/35 and E-2016-04)

La plataforma Socrative como herramienta de aprendizaje: Un a aplicación a la asignatura Métodos Cuantitativos

Los métodos cuantita tivos proporcionan una herramienta de análisis esencial y ap licable a la práctica totalidad de las ra mas de la economía, incluyendo la Economía P ública. El análisis de las políticas públicas, su eficacia y efici encia es de especial relevancia y , por tanto, es un elemento que debe ser trasladado tam bién a las aulas. La asignatura Métodos Cuantitativos impartida en los grados de Economía, Finanzas y Contabilidad y Administración y Dirección de Empresas de la Universitat Jaume I tiene un componente práctico de sta ca ble , en el que se incluyen e jercicios de la rama de Economía P ública, en tre otras. Este trabajo presenta la implementación de técnicas de mobile learning en el aula. En concreto, se estimula la competición en tre estudiantes mediante el uso de la plata forma Socrative . Los resultados muestran mejoras en la adquisición de conocimientos y en la participación de los alumnos en el desarrollo de las clases , así como una elevada aceptación y satisfacción entre el alumnado .Quantitative methods provide an essential tool of analysis in virtually al l branches in economics, including also Public E conomics . The analysis of public poli cies, their effectiveness and their efficiency is of special relevance, and therefore, an element that must be tr ansferred also to the classroom . The subject Q uantitative M ethods taught in the degrees of Economics, Finance and Accounting and Business Manag ement of the Universitat Jaume I has a remarkable practical component, which inclu des exercises in the branch of Public E conomics, among others. This paper describes the implementation of mobile learning methods in the class. In particular, students compet ition in class using the Socrative platform. The results suggest improvements in the acquisition of knowledge and in the parti cipation of the students in lessons , as well as a high rate of acceptance and satisfaction among students

La eficiencia de los municipios españoles durante el período de crisis

En este trabajo se analiza la eficiencia en costes de los gobiernos locales españoles durante el período de la crisis económica (2008-2012). Los resultados indican una mejora general de la eficiencia a lo largo del período, es decir, los gobiernos locales son más eficientes en tiempos de crisis. Asimismo, el análisis muestra que los niveles de eficiencia varían en función del tamaño de los gobiernos locales, siendo los municipios de mayor tamaño los más eficientes

Searching for the optimal territorial structure: the case of Spanish provincial councils

Modern states are organized in multi-level governance structures with economic and political authorities dispersed across them. However, although there is relatively widespread consensus that this form of organization is preferable to a centralized authority, the same cannot be said about its jurisdictional design—that is, how to transfer authority from central states to both supranational and subnational levels. This lack of consensus also exists in contexts with explicit initiatives to strengthen political ties such as the European Union (EU), and even within EU member countries, a situation that is aggravated by the relative scarcity of contributions that measure the advantages and disadvantages of different territorial organizations. We explore these issues through a study of one EU country, Spain, whose provincial councils (diputaciones) are often the subject of debate and controversy due to their contribution to increasing public spending and their purported inefficiencies, corruption, and lack of transparency. Specifically, we combine a variety of activity analysis techniques to evaluate how they impact on local government performance. Results suggest that, in general, the presence of a provincial council has a positive impact on local government performance, but when their activity levels are too high the effect can become pernicious

Quality of government and economic growth at the municipal level: Evidence from Spain

This paper analyzes the relationship between government efficiency—an important dimension of quality of government—and economic growth at the municipal level in 1,820 Spanish municipalities during the period 2008–2015. At this level of disaggregation, the literature is virtually nonexistent due to severe data constraints. The efficiency of local government provides an accurate indicator of how good local authorities are in managing their budget. This variable is expected to be highly correlated with other more traditional quality of government indicators, such as corruption. After computing our measure, we then use it in a growth regression framework. We find a dominant positive effect of government efficiency on income per capita growth, which is robust to a wide variety of scenarios. Our findings also suggest that increases in local government quality are particularly rewarding for the poorest municipalities.Funding for open access charge: CRUE-Universitat Jaume

Which estimator to measure local governments' cost efficiency? The case of Spanish municipalities

We analyse overall cost efficiency in Spanish local governments during the crisis period (2008-2015). To this end, we first consider some of the most popular nonparametric methods to evaluate local government efficiency, data envelopment analysis and free disposal hull, as well as recent proposals, namely the order-m partial frontier and the nonparametric estimator proposed by Kneip et al. (Econom Theory 24(6):1663-1697, 2008). Second, to compare the four methods and choose the most appropriate one for our particular context and dataset (local government cost efficiency in Spain), we carry out an experiment via Monte Carlo simulations and discuss the relative performance of the efficiency scores under various scenarios. Our results suggest that there is no one approach suitable for all efficiency analysis. We find that for our sample of 1846 Spanish local governments, the average cost efficiency would have been between 0.5417 and 0.7543 during the period 2008-2015, suggesting that Spanish local governments could have achieved the same level of local outputs with about 25% and 46% fewer resources

Value capture and embeddedness in social-purpose-driven ecosystems : A multiple-case study of European digital healthcare platforms

We aim to answer the question of the effect of a social-purpose-driven ecosystem on value capture from digital health platforms. We call the social-purpose-driven ecosystem a phenomenon which seeks social impact before profits and aims to empower citizens for individual and collective well-being. Thus, capturing value from digital platforms embedded in a social-purpose-driven ecosystem fundamentally differs from profiting from purely commercial digital platforms and poses significant challenges to platform owners and public policy. Previous research has focused mainly on profiting from technological innovations but has yet to consider the contextual role of the social-purpose-driven ecosystem. We applied the Profiting from Innovation (PFI) framework to fill this gap. Furthermore, based on the results of the multiple-case study of five European digital healthcare platforms, we extend the PFI framework. As a result, we define four unique contingencies which enable value capture from digital healthcare platforms embedded in a social-purpose-driven ecosystem: 1) multilayer value creation, (2) multipurpose complementary assets, (3) emerging dominant design, and (4) distributed socio-economic returns mechanisms. The study offers two managerial and policy contributions. First, it calls on platform owners and policymakers to acknowledge the contextual effect of a social-purpose-driven ecosystem. Second, multilayer value creation, multiple complementary assets, dominant design and distributed socio-economic returns mechanisms can positively affect capturing value from digital healthcare platforms.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

The motivations for the adoption of management innovation by local governments and its performance effects

This article analyses the economic, political and institutional antecedents and performance effects of the adoption of shared Senior Management Teams (SMTs) – a management innovation (MI) that occurs when a team of senior managers oversees two or more public organizations. Findings from statistical analysis of 201 English local governments and interviews with organizational leaders reveal that shared SMTs are adopted to develop organisational capacity in resource‐challenged, politically risk‐averse governments, and in response to coercive and mimetic institutional pressures. Importantly, sharing SMTs may reduce rather than enhance efficiency and effectiveness due to redundancy costs and the political transaction costs associated with diverting resources away from a high‐performing partner to support their lower‐performing counterpart

Evaluating cost efficiency in local governments' provision of public goods and services: applications to the Spanish case

The present thesis project considers the multidimensional evaluation of different aspects related to the cost efficiency of local governments in Spain, using non-parametric frontier analysis methods. In doing so, the economic crisis scenario that seriously affected Spanish local government revenues and finances in general is taken into account. The thesis contributes to the development of robust tools to evaluate and promote the improvement of the efficiency of local governments. The empirical results provide evidence for a better definition of public policies through the evaluation and identification of the benchmark local governments in order to set potential improvements and, therefore, minimize (cost) inefficiencies which might help to reduce public expenditures.El presente proyecto de tesis plantea la evaluación multidimensional de distintos aspectos relacionados con la eficiencia en costes de los gobiernos locales en España, utilizando métodos de análisis frontera no paramétricos. Al hacer esto se tiene en cuenta el escenario de crisis económica vivido en España durante los últimos años y que ha tenido un gran impacto en los ingresos y finanzas locales en general. La tesis contribuye al desarrollo de herramientas robustas para evaluar y promover la mejora de la eficiencia de los gobiernos locales. Los resultados empíricos aportan evidencia para una mejor definición de políticas públicas mediante la evaluación e identificación de los gobiernos locales más eficientes como punto de referencia para establecer mejoras potenciales y, por lo tanto, poder eliminar ineficiencias (en costes) que ayuden a reducir el gasto público

Game-based evalutation and self-assessment of the acquired Knowledge in the laboratory sessions of quantitative methods

Ponència presentada a la 9th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, celebrada a Barcelona els dies 3-5 de Juliol de 201