IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/econwp/085.html

Improving efficiency through consolidation of jurisdictions? Evidence from the cantons of Switzerland

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe K. Widmer
  • George Elias
  • Peter Zweifel

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the optimal scale of local jurisdictions (cantons) in Switzerland applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to the years 2000 to 2004. Aggregate output performance indicators for four local government activities (administration, education, health, and transportation) are used to measure technical and scale efficiency and to derive DEA scores. Results show that these public services fail to exhibit economies of scale, undermining quests for centralization of public good provision while suggesting the possibility of Tiebout competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe K. Widmer & George Elias & Peter Zweifel, 2012. "Improving efficiency through consolidation of jurisdictions? Evidence from the cantons of Switzerland," ECON - Working Papers 085, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:zur:econwp:085
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/63506/1/econwp085.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. GIJBELS, Irène & MAMMEN, Enno & PARK, Byeong U. & SIMAR, Léopold, 1997. "On estimation of monotone and concave frontier functions," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1997031, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    2. Per Andersen & Niels Christian Petersen, 1993. "A Procedure for Ranking Efficient Units in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(10), pages 1261-1264, October.
    3. Philippe Widmer & Peter Zweifel, 2012. "Fiscal Equalization, Tiebout Competition, and Incentives for Efficiency in a Federalist Country," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(1), pages 3-29, January.
    4. Olson, Mancur, Jr, 1969. "The Principle of "Fiscal Equivalence": The Division of Responsibilities among Different Levels of Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 479-487, May.
    5. Mehdi Farsi & Massimo Filippini, 2006. "An Analysis of Efficiency and Productivity in Swiss Hospitals," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 142(I), pages 1-37, March.
    6. De Borger, Bruno & Kerstens, Kristiaan, 1996. "Cost efficiency of Belgian local governments: A comparative analysis of FDH, DEA, and econometric approaches," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 145-170, April.
    7. Antonio Afonso & Ludger Schuknecht & Vito Tanzi, 2010. "Public sector efficiency: evidence for new EU member states and emerging markets," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(17), pages 2147-2164.
    8. Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 1998. "Sensitivity Analysis of Efficiency Scores: How to Bootstrap in Nonparametric Frontier Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(1), pages 49-61, January.
    9. Rui Nuno Baleiras, 2001. "To fragment or to consolidate jurisdictions: the optimal architecture of government," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp401, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    10. Léopold Simar & Paul Wilson, 2000. "Statistical Inference in Nonparametric Frontier Models: The State of the Art," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 49-78, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Simar, Leopold & Wilson, Paul W., 2007. "Estimation and inference in two-stage, semi-parametric models of production processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 31-64, January.
    2. Philippe Widmer & Peter Zweifel, 2012. "Fiscal Equalization, Tiebout Competition, and Incentives for Efficiency in a Federalist Country," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(1), pages 3-29, January.
    3. Forsund, Finn R. & Sarafoglou, Nikias, 2005. "The tale of two research communities: The diffusion of research on productive efficiency," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 17-40, October.
    4. Philippe K. Widmer & Peter Zweifel, 2008. "Public Good Provision in a Federalist Country: Tiebout Competition, Fiscal Equalization, and Incentives for Efficiency in Switzerland," SOI - Working Papers 0804, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich, revised Dec 2010.
    5. Kristof De Witte & Rui Marques, 2010. "Designing performance incentives, an international benchmark study in the water sector," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 18(2), pages 189-220, June.
    6. Gilbert, R. Alton & Wheelock, David C. & Wilson, Paul W., 2004. "New evidence on the Fed's productivity in providing payments services," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(9), pages 2175-2190, September.
    7. Link, Heike, 2019. "The impact of including service quality into efficiency analysis: The case of franchising regional rail passenger serves in Germany," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 284-300.
    8. Angeliki Flokou & Vassilis Aletras & Dimitris Niakas, 2017. "Decomposition of potential efficiency gains from hospital mergers in Greece," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 467-484, December.
    9. Léopold Simar & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2007. "Statistical inference for aggregates of Farrell-type efficiencies," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(7), pages 1367-1394.
    10. Simanti Bandyopadhyay, 2012. "Performance Evaluation of Urban Local Governments: A Case for Indian Cities," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1232, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    11. Esteve, Miriam & Aparicio, Juan & Rodriguez-Sala, Jesus J. & Zhu, Joe, 2023. "Random Forests and the measurement of super-efficiency in the context of Free Disposal Hull," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(2), pages 729-744.
    12. Dag Fjeld Edvardsen & Finn R. Førsund & Sverre A. C. Kittelsen, 2017. "Productivity development of Norwegian institutions of higher education 2004–2013," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(4), pages 399-415, April.
    13. Wheelock, David C. & Wilson, Paul W., 2008. "Non-parametric, unconditional quantile estimation for efficiency analysis with an application to Federal Reserve check processing operations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 209-225, July.
    14. Isabel Narbón-Perpiñá & Maria Balaguer-Coll & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2019. "Evaluating local government performance in times of crisis," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 64-100, January.
    15. Carlos Barros & Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio, 2011. "Productivity drivers and market dynamics in the Spanish first division football league," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 5-13, February.
    16. Feitosa Lopes, Daniel Alisson & Neto, Nicolino Trompieri & Barbosa, Macelo Ponte & Holanda, Marcos Costa, 2008. "Determinantes da Eficiência dos Gastos Públicos em Educação e Saúde: O caso do Ceará [Measuring and Explaining the Local Government Efficiency in Ceara: Evidence from Education and Health]," MPRA Paper 24533, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Guan, Jiancheng & Chen, Kaihua, 2012. "Modeling the relative efficiency of national innovation systems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 102-115.
    18. Leopold Simar & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2006. "On Testing Equality of Distributions of Technical Efficiency Scores," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 497-522.
    19. Ioannis E. Tsolas, 2023. "Efficiency Measurement of Lignite-Fired Power Plants in Greece Using a DEA-Bootstrap Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-10, February.
    20. Sebastian Kohl & Jan Schoenfelder & Andreas Fügener & Jens O. Brunner, 2019. "The use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in healthcare with a focus on hospitals," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 245-286, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • C67 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Input-Output Models
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

    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:zur:econwp:085. 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: Severin Oswald (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/seizhch.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.