IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bar/bedcje/200274.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Factors influencing privatization of urban solid waste collection: some evidence from Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Germa Manel Bel Queralt
  • Antonio Miralles

    (Universitat de Barcelona)

Abstract

In this paper we analyse some of the organisational aspects of the urban solid waste collection and, in particular, the privatization modality of contracting out. We start by discussing some of the theoretical aspects of contracting out. We then specify and estimate an explanatory model on a sample of municipalities that we surveyed. Our purpose is twofold: on the one hand, we identify the economic factors at work when deciding to contract out the service and, on the other hand, we analyse the role of ideological factors in choosing between the public production of the service or contracting it out. The results show a significant effect of the demand for waste collection on contracting out. There also appears to be a neighbouring effect as the municipalities close to other cities that contract out are also more prone to do so. Finally, the decisions to contract seem to have been motivated by pragmatic rather than ideological reasons.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:bar:bedcje:200274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ere.ub.es/dtreball/E0274.rdf/at_download/file
    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. Oliver Hart & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1127-1161.
    3. Yatchew, Adonis & Griliches, Zvi, 1985. "Specification Error in Probit Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 134-139, February.
    4. Harvey, A C, 1976. "Estimating Regression Models with Multiplicative Heteroscedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(3), pages 461-465, May.
    5. 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.
    6. Suzanne Reimer, 1999. "Contract Service Firms in Local Authorities: Evolving Geographies of Activity," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 121-130.
    7. Antony W. Dnes, 1995. "Franchising and Privatization," World Bank Publications - Reports 11677, The World Bank Group.
    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. 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. Germà Bel & Xavier Fageda & Melania Mur, 2011. "Privatization, cooperation and costs of solid waste services in small towns," IREA Working Papers 201111, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jul 2011.
    3. Germà Bel & Xavier Fageda & Melania Mur, 2010. "¿Por qué se privatizan servicios en los municipios (pequeños)? Evidencia empírica sobre residuos sólidos y agua," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 192(1), pages 33-58, March.
    4. Nuria Boch Roca & Javier Suárez Pandiello, 2015. "Politics and Finance in Spanish Municipalities," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 212(1), pages 51-66, March.
    5. Xavier Fageda & Germa Bel, 2008. "Choosing hybrid organizations for local servicesdelivery: An empirical analysis of partial privatization," IREA Working Papers 200803, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2008.
    6. Suho Bae, 2010. "Public Versus Private Delivery Of Municipal Solid Waste Services: The Case Of North Carolina," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(3), pages 414-428, July.
    7. Antonio Miralles, 2005. "Political economy of municipal water service privatization in Spain: a duration model analysis," Working Papers in Economics 133, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    8. Xavier Fageda & Germa Bel, 2008. "Local privatization, intermunicipal cooperation,transaction costs and political interests: Evidence from Spain," IREA Working Papers 200804, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2008.
    9. Michael Klien, 2014. "Corporatization and the Behavior of Public Firms: How Shifting Control Rights Affects Political Interference in Water Prices," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(4), pages 393-422, June.
    10. Germà Bel & Xavier Fageda, 2009. "Factors explaining local privatization: a meta-regression analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 105-119, April.
    11. Germa Bel & Xavier Fageda, 2008. "Reforming the local public sector: economics and politics in privatization of water and solid waste," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 45-65.
    12. 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.
    13. Bernardino Benito & José Solana & María-Rocío Moreno, 2014. "Explaining efficiency in municipal services providers," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 225-239, December.

    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. Germà Bel & Antonio Miralles, 2003. "Factors Influencing the Privatisation of Urban Solid Waste Collection in Spain," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(7), pages 1323-1334, June.
    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. Germà Bel & Xavier Fageda, 2009. "Factors explaining local privatization: a meta-regression analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 105-119, April.
    4. Antonio Miralles, 2005. "Political economy of municipal water service privatization in Spain: a duration model analysis," Working Papers in Economics 133, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    5. Fredrik Andersson & Henrik Jordahl & Jens Josephson, 2019. "Outsourcing Public Services: Contractibility, Cost, and Quality," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 65(4), pages 349-372.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. E. Dijkgraaf & R. H. J. M. Gradus & B. Melenberg, 2003. "Contracting out refuse collection," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 553-570, July.
    9. 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.
    10. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3573-3630 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Jean-Etienne de Bettignies & Thomas W. Ross, 2010. "The Economics of Public–Private Partnerships: Some Theoretical Contributions," Chapters, in: Graeme A. Hodge & Carsten Greve & Anthony E. Boardman (ed.), International Handbook on Public–Private Partnerships, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Xavier Fageda & Germa Bel, 2008. "Local privatization, intermunicipal cooperation,transaction costs and political interests: Evidence from Spain," IREA Working Papers 200804, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2008.
    13. Paul Walker, 2016. "From complete to incomplete (contracts): A survey of the mainstream approach to the theory of privatisation," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(2), pages 212-229, August.
    14. Gregory, Robert G. & Borland, Jeff, 1999. "Recent developments in public sector labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 53, pages 3573-3630, Elsevier.
    15. 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.
    16. Stephen King & Rohan Pitchford, 2008. "Private or Public? Towards a Taxonomy of Optimal Ownership and Management Regimes," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(266), pages 366-377, September.
    17. Paul H. Jensen & Robin E. Stonecash, 2004. "The Efficiency of Public Sector Outsourcing Contracts: A Literature Review," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n29, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    18. Matthew Holian, 2009. "Outsourcing in US cities, ambulances and elderly voters," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 421-445, December.
    19. Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "State versus Private Ownership," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 133-150, Fall.
    20. Bennedsen, Morten & Schultz, Christian, 2011. "Arm's length delegation of public services," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 543-552.
    21. Dalton, Christina Marsh & Warren, Patrick L., 2016. "Cost versus control: Understanding ownership through outsourcing in hospitals," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-15.

    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:bar:bedcje:200274. 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: Espai de Recerca en Economia (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feubaes.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.