IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sls/ipmsls/v32y201710.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenges in the Measurement of Public Sector Productivity in OECD 180 Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Edwin Lau
  • Zsuzsanna Lonti
  • Rebecca Schultz

Abstract

Productivity is one of the main engines of economic growth. While most existing work on productivity has focused on the private sector, there is great value in better understanding productivity in the public sector, given government's important role in the provision of goods and services and its substantial contribution to overall GDP. However, the measurement of public sector productivity as a first step towards better understanding its dynamics is fraught with challenges, as the public sector differs substantially from the private sector in some of its key characteristics. This article examines current country practices and challenges to measure public sector productivity and identifies five areas to further enhance measurement efforts: (i) improvements to input measurement and cost accounting, (ii) standardization and comparability of measures, (iii) output measurement beyond the education and health sectors, (iv) a typology of activities at the micro level, and (v) intra-governmental co-ordination on productivity measurement. The article also calls for further research on the policy drivers for public sector productivity to delve deeper into how governance frameworks can be mobilized to achieve greater public sector productivity in support of effective public governance and ultimately the well-being of citizens.

Suggested Citation

  • Edwin Lau & Zsuzsanna Lonti & Rebecca Schultz, 2017. "Challenges in the Measurement of Public Sector Productivity in OECD 180 Countries," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 32, pages 180-195, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:32:y:2017:10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/32/lau.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Schreyer, 2010. "Towards Measuring the Volume Output of Education and Health Services: A Handbook," OECD Statistics Working Papers 2010/2, OECD Publishing.
    2. Nils Gutacker & Chris Bojke & Silvio Daidone & Nancy J. Devlin & David Parkin & Andrew Street, 2013. "Truly Inefficient Or Providing Better Quality Of Care? Analysing The Relationship Between Risk‐Adjusted Hospital Costs And Patients' Health Outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(8), pages 931-947, August.
    3. Delphine Moretti, 2016. "Accrual practices and reform experiences in OECD countries Results of the 2016 OECD Accruals Survey," OECD Journal on Budgeting, OECD Publishing, vol. 16(1), pages 9-28.
    4. Adriana Castelli & Diane Dawson & Hugh Gravelle & Andrew Street, 2007. "Improving the measurement of health system output growth," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(10), pages 1091-1107, October.
    5. Patrick Dunleavy & Leandro Carrera, 2013. "Growing the Productivity of Government Services," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14497.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diego Muniz Benedetti & Diana Vaz Lima, 2022. "Micro-Level Public Entities’ Efficiency Reporting Using Combined Adaptation of Activity-Based Costing (ABC) and Free Disposable Hull (FDH) Analysis," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 1121-1138, December.
    2. Patricia Cubi-Molla & Martin Buxton & Nancy Devlin, 2021. "Allocating Public Spending Efficiently: Is There a Need for a Better Mechanism to Inform Decisions in the UK and Elsewhere?," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 19(5), pages 635-644, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francette Koechlin & Paul Konijn & Luca Lorenzoni & Paul Schreyer, 2017. "Comparing Hospitals and Health Prices and Volumes Across Countries: A New Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 43-64, March.
    2. France R. M. Portrait & Onno van der Galiën & Bernard Van den Berg, 2016. "Measuring Healthcare Providers' Performances Within Managed Competition Using Multidimensional Quality and Cost Indicators," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 408-423, April.
    3. María Jose Aragon Aragon & Adriana Castelli & James Gaughan, 2017. "Hospital Trusts productivity in the English NHS: Uncovering possible drivers of productivity variations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-14, August.
    4. Hans Pitlik & Michael Klien & Stefan Schiman, 2017. "Stabilitätskonforme Berücksichtigung nachhaltiger öffentlicher Investitionen," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 60595, April.
    5. Bessho, Shun-ichiro & Hirota, Haruaki, 2023. "Do public account financial statements matter? Evidence from Japanese municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Tor Iversen & Eline Aas & Gunnar Rosenqvist & Unto Häkkinen & on behalf of the EuroHOPE study group, 2015. "Comparative Analysis of Treatment Costs in EUROHOPE," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(S2), pages 5-22, December.
    7. Mabel Sánchez-Barrioluengo, 2016. "Expenditure on education in Purchasing Power Standards: A comparison of three alternative deflators," JRC Research Reports JRC102423, Joint Research Centre.
    8. Chris Bojke & Adriana Castelli & Andrew Street & Padraic Ward & Mauro Laudicella, 2013. "Regional Variation In The Productivity Of The English National Health Service," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 194-211, February.
    9. Sara Jamalabadi & Vera Winter & Jonas Schreyögg, 2020. "A Systematic Review of the Association Between Hospital Cost/price and the Quality of Care," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 18(5), pages 625-639, October.
    10. Francesco Longo & Luigi Siciliani & Andrew Street, 2019. "Are cost differences between specialist and general hospitals compensated by the prospective payment system?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(1), pages 7-26, February.
    11. Kyoji FUKAO & Taisuke KAMEDA & Kota NAKAMURA & Ryoichi NAMBA & Masahiro SATO, 2017. "Measurement of Deflators and Real Value Added in the Service Sector," Economic Analysis, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), vol. 194, pages 9-44, May.
    12. Kerry Hickson, 2014. "The GDP Value of Twentieth-Century Health Improvements in Developed Economies: Initial Estimates for England," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(2), pages 385-399, June.
    13. Valerie Moran & Rowena Jacobs, 2018. "Investigating the relationship between costs and outcomes for English mental health providers: a bi-variate multi-level regression analysis," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(5), pages 709-718, June.
    14. Florian Dorn & Stefanie Gaebler & Felix Roesel, 2021. "Ineffective fiscal rules? The effect of public sector accounting standards on budgets, efficiency, and accountability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 186(3), pages 387-412, March.
    15. Troels Kristensen & Peter Bogetoft & Kjeld Pedersen, 2010. "Potential gains from hospital mergers in Denmark," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 334-345, December.
    16. Gang Liu, 2015. "A stylized satellite account for human capital," Discussion Papers 816, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    17. Chris Bojke & Adriana Castelli & Katja Grašič & Andrew Street, 2017. "Productivity Growth in the English National Health Service from 1998/1999 to 2013/2014," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 547-565, May.
    18. Cordella, Antonio & Cordella, Tito, 2017. "Motivations, monitoring technologies, and pay for performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 236-255.
    19. Nunzia Carbonara & Roberta Pellegrino, 2020. "The role of public private partnerships in fostering innovation," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 140-156, February.
    20. Changwony, Frederick Kibon & Paterson, Audrey S., 2019. "Accounting practice, fiscal decentralization and corruption," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; OECD; Policies; Global Productivity; Total Factor Productivity; Wages; GDP; Goods and Services; government provisions; measurment; cost accounting; intra-government co-ordination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:32:y:2017:10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CSLS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cslssca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.