IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fan/epepep/vhtml10.3280-ep2016-001004.html

The public sector efficiency in Italy: The case of Lombardy municipalities in the provision of the essential public services

Author

Listed:
  • Tommaso Agasisti
  • Antonio Dal Bianco
  • Massimo Griffini

Abstract

This paper evaluates how efficient are the municipalities located in the most populous Italian Region (Lombardy) in providing essential public services: general administration, municipal and administrative police, waste collection, road network and street lighting. The empirical analysis is conducted through bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) on a sample of 331 municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants, and refers to the three years 2010, 2011 and 2012. The results highlight that there is room for substantial improvement of efficiency: the same level of output can be obtained while reducing the resources of about 33%. A second-stage truncated regression reveals that: the structure of population matters, scale effects do exist, and more financially healthy municipalities are also more efficient in providing essential services

Suggested Citation

  • Tommaso Agasisti & Antonio Dal Bianco & Massimo Griffini, 2016. "The public sector efficiency in Italy: The case of Lombardy municipalities in the provision of the essential public services," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(1), pages 59-84.
    • Handle: RePEc:fan:epepep:v:html10.3280/ep2016-001004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=57034&Tipo=ArticoloPDF
    Download Restriction: Single articles can be downloaded buying download credits, for info: https://www.francoangeli.it/DownloadCredit
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leopold Simar & Paul Wilson, 2000. "A general methodology for bootstrapping in non-parametric frontier models," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(6), pages 779-802.
    2. Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Fiscal Consolidation in Europe: Composition Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 105-110, May.
    3. Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1995. "Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy Changes: International Evidence and the Swedish Experience," NBER Working Papers 5332, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Lorenzo Boetti & Massimiliano Piacenza & Gilberto Turati, 2012. "Decentralization and Local Governments' Performance: How Does Fiscal Autonomy Affect Spending Efficiency?," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 68(3), pages 269-302, September.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1997. "Fiscal Adjustments in OECD Countries: Composition and Macroeconomic Effects," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(2), pages 210-248, June.
    6. Timothy J. Coelli & D.S. Prasada Rao & Christopher J. O’Donnell & George E. Battese, 2005. "An Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-0-387-25895-9, August.
    7. McDonald, John, 2009. "Using least squares and tobit in second stage DEA efficiency analyses," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(2), pages 792-798, September.
    8. de Sousa, Maria da Conceição Sampaio & Cribari-Neto, Francisco & Stosic, Borko D., 2005. "Explaining DEA Technical Efficiency Scores in an Outlier Corrected Environment: The Case of Public Services in Brazilian Municipalities," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 25(2), November.
    9. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-332.
    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. Tommaso Agasisti & Francesco Porcelli, 2019. "Local governments’ efficiency and its heterogeneity – empirical evidence from a Stochastic Frontier Analysis of Italian municipalities 2010-2015," Working papers 81, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    2. Sugiyarto, Ardi & Lee, Boon L. & Wilson, Clevo, 2025. "Narrowing the gap: Dynamics of Indonesia's public expenditure performance in economically lagging districts," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 2299-2318.
    3. Betser-Nahum, Yifat & BenDavid-Hadar, Iris, 2025. "The municipalities efficiency in Israel: The case of the provision of educational services," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    4. Ifigeneia-Dimitra Pougkakioti, 2021. "Measuring The Efficiency And Productivity Change Of Municipalities With An Output Oriented Model:Empirical Evidence Across Greek Municipalities Over The Time Period 2012-2016," Romanian Journal of Regional Science, Romanian Regional Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 98-125, JUNE.
    5. Simona Ferraro & Tommaso Agasisti & Francesco Porcelli & Mara Soncin, 2021. "Local governments’ efficiency and educational results: empirical evidence from Italian primary schools," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(35), pages 4017-4039, July.
    6. D'Inverno, Giovanna & Carosi, Laura & Ravagli, Letizia, 2018. "Global public spending efficiency in Tuscan municipalities," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 102-113.
    7. Fusco, Elisa & Vidoli, Francesco & Rogge, Nicky, 2020. "Spatial directional robust Benefit of the Doubt approach in presence of undesirable output: An application to Italian waste sector," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    8. Ermini, Barbara & Santolini, Raffaella & Ciommi, Mariateresa, 2023. "Equitable and sustainable well-being in Italian municipalities: Do women in politics make the difference?," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    9. Tommaso Agasisti & Pietro Massaggia & Teo Miserocchi, 2025. "The Relationship between Local Governments Efficiency and Quality of Life: an Empirical Analysis on Italian Provinces," Working papers 120, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    10. Perugini, Francesco, 2024. "Local government efficiency and economic growth: The Italian case," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    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. Tommaso Agasisti & Antonio Dal Bianco & Massimo Griffini, 2015. "The public sector fiscal efficiency in Italy: the case of Lombardy municipalities in the provision of the essential public services," Working papers 25, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    2. Vincent (Vincent Peter) Hogan, 2001. "Expansionary fiscal contractions?," Working Papers 200103, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    3. Maria Neicheva, 2006. "Non-Keynesian Effects of Government Expenditure on Output in Bulgaria: An HP Filter Approach," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 1-12.
    4. Graziella Bonanno, 2014. "The Efficiency of the Italian Banking System over 2006-2011. An Application of the Stochastic Frontier Approach," Rivista italiana degli economisti, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 277-306.
    5. Bonanno, Graziella, 2014. "ICT and R&D as inputs or efficiency determinants? Analysing the manufacturing Italian firms over the 2007-2009," MPRA Paper 57640, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Heylen, Freddy & Hoebeeck, Annelies & Buyse, Tim, 2013. "Government efficiency, institutions, and the effects of fiscal consolidation on public debt," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 40-59.
    7. Francesco Aiello & Graziella Bonanno, 2016. "Looking at the determinants of efficiency in banking: evidence from Italian mutual-cooperatives," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 507-526, July.
    8. Aiello, Francesco & Bonanno, Graziella, 2016. "Bank efficiency and local market conditions. Evidence from Italy," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 70-90.
    9. Quang Nguyen & Sean Pascoe & Louisa Coglan & Son Nghiem, 2021. "The sensitivity of efficiency scores to input and other choices in stochastic frontier analysis: an empirical investigation," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 31-40, February.
    10. Giavazzi, Francesco & Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco, 2000. "Searching for non-linear effects of fiscal policy: Evidence from industrial and developing countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1259-1289, June.
    11. Lazović-Pita Lejla & Šćeta Lamija, 2021. "A Stochastic Frontier Approach to Measuring Inefficiency of Local Communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 16(1), pages 18-29, June.
    12. F. Heylen & A. Hoebeeck & T. Buyse, 2011. "Fiscal consolidation, institutions and institutional reform: a multivariate analysis of public debt dynamics," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/763, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    13. Neicheva, Maria, 2007. "Non-Keynesian effects of Government Spending: Some implications for the Stability and Growth Pact," MPRA Paper 5277, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. António Afonso, 2001. "Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy in the EU-15," Working Papers Department of Economics 2001/07, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    15. Briotti, Maria Gabriella, 2004. "Fiscal adjustment between 1991 and 2002: stylised facts and policy implications," Occasional Paper Series 9, European Central Bank.
    16. Tommaso Agasisti, 2014. "How does schools’ efficiency look like across Europe? An empirical analysis of Germany, Spain, France, Italy and UK using OECD PISA2012 data," Working papers 9, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    17. Francesco Giavazzi & Tullio Jappelli & Marco Pagano, "undated". "Searching for Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy," Working Papers 136, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    18. Graziella Bonanno, 2016. "ICT and R&D as inputs or efficiency determinants? Analysing Italian manufacturing firms (2007–2009)," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(3), pages 383-404, December.
    19. Francesco Aiello & Graziella Bonanno & Luigi Capristo, 2017. "Explaining Differences In Efficiency: The Case Of Local Government Literature," Working Papers 201704, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    20. Franz R. Hahn, 2007. "Determinants of Bank Efficiency in Europe. Assessing Bank Performance Across Markets," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 31499.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

    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:fan:epepep:v:html10.3280/ep2016-001004. 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: Stefania Rosato (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/sommario.aspx?IDRivista=16 .

    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.