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What Drives Intermediate Local Governments’ Spending Efficiency: The Case of French Départements

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  • Stefan Seifert
  • Maria Nieswand

Abstract

The restructuring of the allocation of governmental competencies in France has increased the importance of subnational governments by transferring additional tasks. We analyse the efficiency of public spending on the intermediate government level for the 96 départements in metropolitan France in 2008. Spending efficiency is measured using Data Envelopment Analysis. Results indicate significant room for improvement and we detect an average spending inefficiency of 12%. To explain efficiency, a bootstrapped truncated regression is applied. The second-stage regression shows that efficiency is also determined by exogenous factors and identifies the distance to the national capital, inhabitants’ income and the share of inhabitants older than 65 as significant determinants of efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Seifert & Maria Nieswand, 2014. "What Drives Intermediate Local Governments’ Spending Efficiency: The Case of French Départements," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 766-790, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:flgsxx:v:40:y:2014:i:5:p:766-790
    DOI: 10.1080/03003930.2013.812962
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    Cited by:

    1. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2011. "Political centralization and government accountability," Economics Working Papers 1335, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2015.
    2. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2016. "Political Centralization and Government Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 381-422.
    3. Isabel Narbón-Perpiñá & Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll & Diego Prior & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2021. "Searching for the optimal territorial structure: the case of Spanish provincial councils," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(4), pages 645-664, April.
    4. Juan Piedra-Peña & Marie-Laure Breuillé & Julie Le Gallo, 2024. "Municipal efficiency spillovers in France," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 73(4), pages 2143-2172, December.
    5. Briec, Walter & Kerstens, Kristiaan & Prior, Diego & Van de Woestyne, Ignace, 2018. "Testing general and special Färe-Primont indices: A proposal for public and private sector synthetic indices of European regional expenditures and tourism," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 271(2), pages 756-768.

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