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An assessment of the performance of Italian public historical archives: Preservation vs utilisation

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  • Guccio, Calogero
  • Martorana, Marco
  • Mazza, Isidoro
  • Pignataro, Giacomo
  • Rizzo, Ilde

Abstract

Economists have paid an increasing attention to the estimation of efficiency in the public sector. Archives constitute an exception notwithstanding their cultural and historical relevance. This paper is, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to fill this lacuna. The analysis of the performance of archives raises theoretical issues because their outputs have characteristics of a pure public good (preservation) and of a private service (utilisation). Moreover, the trade-off between the long and short-run goals of, respectively, preservation and utilisation is central in most public policies concerning heritage. We address this issue by studying the efficiency of public historical archives (PHAs) in Italy, over the period 2011–2012. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and implement one-stage and two-stage approaches to investigate PHAs’ performance in the management of their different and potentially conflicting functions. Our analysis shows that PHAs perform better in the preservation function, considering the objectives and constraints they face.

Suggested Citation

  • Guccio, Calogero & Martorana, Marco & Mazza, Isidoro & Pignataro, Giacomo & Rizzo, Ilde, 2020. "An assessment of the performance of Italian public historical archives: Preservation vs utilisation," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1270-1286.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:42:y:2020:i:6:p:1270-1286
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2019.12.006
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    Cited by:

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    2. Guccio, C. & Lisi, D. & Martorana, M.F. & Pignataro, G., 2020. "Incorporating quality in the efficiency assessment of hospitals using a generalized directional distance function approach," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 20/17, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Del Barrio-Tellado, María José & Gómez-Vega, Mafalda & Gómez-Zapata, Jonathan Daniel & Herrero-Prieto, Luis César, 2021. "Urban public libraries: Performance analysis using dynamic-network-DEA," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. Del Barrio-Tellado, María José & Gómez-Vega, Mafalda & Herrero-Prieto, Luis César, 2023. "Performance of cultural heritage institutions: A regional perspective," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(PB).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cultural heritage; Archives; Efficiency; Network DEA; Nondiscretionary and intermediate measure; Non-parametric frontier;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General
    • Z18 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Public Policy

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