IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ahy/wpaper/wp50.html

The Municipal Administration Quality Index: The Italian case

Author

Listed:
  • Augusto Cerqua

    (Sapienza University of Rome)

  • Costanza Giannantoni

    (Sapienza University of Rome)

  • Federico Zampollo

    (Gran Sasso Science Institute)

  • Matteo Mazziotta

    (ISTAT)

Abstract

Assessing institutional quality at the municipal level is a complex task and available indices are usually dispersed across different years and offer limited geographical coverage. To bridge this gap, we have introduced the Municipal Administration Quality Index (MAQI), the first composite index designed to measure the quality of administrations at the most granular administrative level over a broad time span. Focusing on Italian municipalities, MAQI evaluates the quality of municipal administrations by examining objective dimensions concerning bureaucratic quality and capacity, local politicians’ valence attributes, and local governments’ economic and fiscal performance. Spanning from 2001 to 2021 and covering nearly all Italian municipalities, MAQI will enable researchers to assess the administrative quality of local governments across multiple dimensions and over time, a task that was previously impracticable.

Suggested Citation

  • Augusto Cerqua & Costanza Giannantoni & Federico Zampollo & Matteo Mazziotta, 2024. "The Municipal Administration Quality Index: The Italian case," Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography 2024-06, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences, revised Oct 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:ahy:wpaper:wp50
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gssi.it/images/discussion%20papers%20rseg/2024/DPRSEG_2024-06.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bergantino, Angela Stefania & Caravaggio, Nicola & Intini, Mario & Resce, Giuliano, 2026. "Far, far away municipalities: Has the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas helped in reducing distances from essential services?," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp26103, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    2. Alessandro Bellocchi & Chiara Lodi & Giovanni Marin & Giuseppe Travaglini & Matteo Zavalloni, 2025. "Floods, Public Budgets and Fiscal Resilience: Evidence from Italian Municipalities," Working Papers 2025.32, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    3. Accetturo, Antonio & Baltrunaite, Audinga & Lazzaro, Elena & Mancini, Anna Laura, 2026. "Do Incentives and Organizational Innovations Affect the Performance of Public Administrations? Lessons from the Italian NRRP," CEPR Discussion Papers 21596, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Giulia Ferrante & Luca Buzzanca & Arsene Perrot, 2025. "Speaking Ourselves Closer: Linguistic Minorities, Social Cohesion and Local Development," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2530, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Aug 2025.
    5. Angela Stefania Bergantino & Giulio Fusco & Mario Intini & Gianluca Monturano, 2026. "Digital divide and income inequality: causal evidence from Italian provinces," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 75(1), pages 1-45, March.
    6. Baraldi, Anna Laura & Cantabene, Claudia & De Iudicibus, Alessandro & Fosco, Giovanni & Grassi, Iacopo, 2026. "When green turns costly: The fiscal fallout of EU waste management funds in Italian municipalities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    7. Cristian Barra & Vincenzo D’Atteo & Edgardo Sica, 2025. "Enhancing efficiency in secondary biomass supply: the role of institutional quality in the EU regions," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 1-43, October.
    8. Caravaggio, Nicola & Resce, Giuliano & Santangelo, Agapito Emanuele, 2025. "EU Cohesion Policy and Digital Public Services," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp25100, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    9. Preyer Elisabeth & Kalcheva Desislava & Curtale Riccardo & Tucci Michele & Kučas Andrius & Bel Germà & Damian Alexandru Cristian & Łukomska Julita & Šķiltere Sanita & Chtioui Matthieu & Hesse Mario & , 2026. "Local taxes and economic growth," JRC Research Reports JRC145286, Joint Research Centre.
    10. Mocetti, Sauro & Frigo, Annalisa, 2026. "The effects of digitalization on the functioning of the public sector: Evidence from e-procurement," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    11. Di Tommaso, Marco Rodolfo & Prodi, Elena & Di Matteo, Dante & Barbieri, Elisa, 2025. "Structural change and its discontents," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 438-455.
    12. Francesco Scalamonti, 2026. "A Proper Measurement of the Countries’ Governance Climate with an Overall Composite Index," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 18(2), pages 174-185, May.
    13. Davide Antonioli & Elisa Chioatto & Ginevra Coletti & Asia Guerreschi & Susanna Mancinelli & Massimiliano Mazzanti & Giuseppe Rocco & Emy Zecca, 2025. "Understanding Sustainability and Innovation: A Collection of Survey Evidence from Italian Contexts," SEEDS Working Papers 1725, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Dec 2025.
    14. Michele Mariani, 2025. "Ten years on: has Italy's Inner Areas Strategy paid off?," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 992, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Vaquero-Piñeiro, Cristina & Salvatici, Luca & Zago, Angelo, 2025. "Synergies among ownership forms and cooperating territories: The case of wine," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ahy:wpaper:wp50. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Andrea Ascani (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ssgssit.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.