Angel Prieto () (Iranasa-CSIC) José L. Zofio () (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) Inmaculada Alvarez () (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Abstract
Municipalities manage their budgets in a complex national, regional, and local legal framework while being under the cross-pressure between of citizens claiming for better public goods and higher-level Administrations requiring higher allocative efficiency in public spending. The legal framework determines the scheme of intergovernmental finance based on well specified cooperation programs for the provision of basic infrastructure that result in different stocks of local infrastructures. We estímate translog cost functions to quantify economies of scale, density and scope in the provision of infrastructure dealing with water supply, sewerage and cleansing of residual waters, paving and lighting. We find that these economies are present to a large degree due to the existing rural structure, characterized by a suboptimal municipal size. This carries an excess cost in the provision of infrastructure in terms of the existing infrastructure stock and the amount of intergovernmental finance. Taking Castilla y Leonas the geographical reference, we estimate infrastructure stocks relying on the Local Infrastructure and Equipment Survey while developing a new price database based on best practice engineering approaches.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Volume (Year): 190 (2009) Issue (Month): 3 (September) Pages: 59-94 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Find related papers by JEL classification: C3 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Panzar, John C & Willig, Robert D, 1981.
"Economies of Scope,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 268-72, May.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)