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Measuring the performance of local governments: evidence from mystery calls

Author

Listed:
  • Silvia Giacomelli

    (Banca d'Italia)

  • Marco Tonello

    (Banca d'Italia)

Abstract

We analyze the mystery calls conducted over a representative sample of Italian municipalities surveying the front office services provided by the One-stop shops (OSSs) for doing business. Mystery calls are phone interviews conducted by callers who pretend to be prospective entrepreneurs wanting to start a new business in the municipality, and whose identity and purposes were not known to the OSSs respondents. The random scheduling of the interviews and the evidence collected on the days and on the number of phone calls needed by the interviewers to conduct the mystery calls make it possible to construct new objective measures of local government performance. After showing that the new indicators are well correlated with alternative measures of governments quality, we study their determinants. We find that a better performance is mainly associated with factors related to internal organization, such as a more intensive use of ICT tools and higher levels of employee expertise, while the socio-economic context does not seem to play a major role.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia Giacomelli & Marco Tonello, 2015. "Measuring the performance of local governments: evidence from mystery calls," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 292, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_292_15
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    Cited by:

    1. Ilaria De Angelis & Guido de Blasio & Lucia Rizzica, 2018. "On the unintended effects of public transfers: evidence from EU funding to Southern Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1180, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    2. Silvia Camussi & Anna Laura Mancini, 2016. "Individual trust: does quality of public services matter?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1069, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Raffaela Giordano & Sergi Lanau & Pietro Tommasino & Petia Topalova, 2020. "Does public sector inefficiency constrain firm productivity? Evidence from Italian provinces," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(4), pages 1019-1049, August.
    4. Agovino Massimiliano & Garofalo Antonio & Cerciello Massimiliano, 2019. "Do Local Institutions Affect Labour Market Participation? The Italian Case," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-21, April.
    5. Ilaria Angelis & Guido Blasio & Lucia Rizzica, 2020. "Lost in Corruption. Evidence from EU Funding to Southern Italy," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 6(2), pages 355-377, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    mystery calls; performance measures; local government;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law

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