IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aic/jopafl/y2012v3p7-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Italian Local Public Services: Some Governance Highlights From The Larger Cities� Experience

Author

Listed:
  • Fabio DE MATTEIS

    (Salento University, f.dematteis@economia.unile.it, Salento, Italy)

  • Daniela PREITE

    (Salento University, daniela.preite@sdabocconi.it, Salento, Italy)

Abstract

Entrusting most local public services to local government entities has led to proliferation of public groups and, consistently, to greater complexity of the governance dynamics of local authorities. Differently from Anglo-Saxon countries, the Italian local public services provision has been characterized by a hybrid externalization process where local entities are legally autonomous but owned by the local government. This leads to a peculiar governance complexity source represented by the dual role (stakeholder and customer) assumed by the local authority. Considering these elements (hybrid externalization and governance structure), this work tries to investigate some governance issues of public groups, basing on the two most populous Italian municipalities. The empirical findings highlight a gap between the presence of the conditions for defining a group governance structure and the adoption of a group approach by the parent local government. The authors try to suggest how to bridge this gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio DE MATTEIS & Daniela PREITE, 2013. "Italian Local Public Services: Some Governance Highlights From The Larger Cities� Experience," Journal of Public Administration, Finance and Law, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 3(3), pages 7-17, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:aic:jopafl:y:2012:v:3:p:7-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.jopafl.com/uploads/issue3/ITALIAN_LOCAL_PUBLIC_SERVICES_SOME_GOVERNANCE_HIGHLIGHTS_FROM_THE_LARGER_CITIES_EXPERIENCE.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 1997. "Privatization in the United States," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(3), pages 447-471, Autumn.
    2. Domberger, Simon & Jensen, Paul, 1997. "Contracting Out by the Public Sector: Theory, Evidence, Prospects," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 13(4), pages 67-78, Winter.
    3. Giuseppe Grossi & Christoph Reichard, 2008. "Municipal corporatization in Germany and Italy," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(5), pages 597-617, September.
    4. George Boyne & Jennifer Law, 2005. "Setting Public Service Outcome Targets: Lessons from Local Public Service Agreements," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 253-260.
    5. Mark Christensen & Peter Skærbæk, 2007. "Framing and overflowing of public sector accountability innovations," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 20(1), pages 101-132, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Germa Bel & Anton Costas, 2006. "Do Public Sector Reforms Get Rusty? Local Privatization in Spain," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24.
    2. Bertacchini, Enrico & Dalle Nogare, Chiara, 2014. "Public provision vs. outsourcing of cultural services: Evidence from Italian cities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 168-182.
    3. Fredrik Andersson & Henrik Jordahl & Jens Josephson, 2019. "Outsourcing Public Services: Contractibility, Cost, and Quality," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 65(4), pages 349-372.
    4. Henry Ohlsson, 2003. "Ownership and Production Costs: Choosing between Public Production and Contracting-Out in the Case of Swedish Refuse Collection," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 24(4), pages 451-476, December.
    5. Germà Bel & Xavier Fageda, 2009. "Factors explaining local privatization: a meta-regression analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 105-119, April.
    6. Shohei Nagasawa, 2018. "Asymmetric cost behavior in local public enterprises: exploring the public interest and striving for efficiency," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 225-273, December.
    7. Germa Bel & Anton Costas, 2004. "Do public sector reforms get rusty? An empirical analysis on privatization of solid waste collection," Public Economics 0409014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Germa Manel Bel Queralt & Antonio Miralles, 2002. "Factors influencing privatization of urban solid waste collection: some evidence from Spain," Working Papers in Economics 74, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    9. Branco Ponomariov & Gordon Kingsley, 2008. "Applicability of the Normative Model of Outsourcing in the Public Sector: The Case of a State Transportation Agency," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 253-272, September.
    10. E. Dijkgraaf & R. H. J. M. Gradus & B. Melenberg, 2003. "Contracting out refuse collection," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 553-570, July.
    11. Anders Sundell & Victor Lapuente, 2012. "Adam Smith or Machiavelli? Political incentives for contracting out local public services," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 469-485, December.
    12. Wassenaar, M.C. & Dijkgraaf, E. & Gradus, R.H.J.M., 2007. "Contracting out: Dutch municipalities reject the solution for the VAT-distortion," Serie Research Memoranda 0003, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    13. Norimichi Matsueda & Jun’Ichi Miki, 2017. "Contracting-Out Of Household Waste Collection Services In Japan," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 65(02), pages 443-455, May.
    14. Andrea Boitani & Marcella Nicolini & Carlo Scarpa, 2013. "Do competition and ownership matter? Evidence from local public transport in Europe," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(11), pages 1419-1434, April.
    15. Cooray, Arusha, 2011. "The role of the government in financial sector development," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 928-938, May.
    16. Alonso, José M. & Clifton, Judith & Díaz-Fuentes, Daniel, 2017. "The impact of government outsourcing on public spending: Evidence from European Union countries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 333-348.
    17. Jan Hagemejer & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2011. "Not All That Glitters," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(3), pages 89-111, May.
    18. Mario Nicoliello & Dennis Tracchia, 2014. "La misurazione della performance nel settore pubblico: il caso del trasporto pubblico locale," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(1), pages 35-53.
    19. Imeda Tsindeliani & Sebastian Kot & Evgeniya Vasilyeva & Levon Narinyan, 2019. "Tax System of the Russian Federation: Current State and Steps towards Financial Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-18, December.
    20. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.

    More about this item

    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:aic:jopafl:y:2012:v:3:p:7-17. 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: Sireteanu Napoleon-Alexandru (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feaicro.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.