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This article has reviewed the international research from the 20th century to the first half of 2019 on the terms "efficiency" and "local government". For this purpose, a bibliometric and a cluster analysis by fractional accounting have been carried out using two of the most important databases: Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. The research found and studied 1222 documents from the WoS Core Collection and 2264 from Scopus. The results show a continuous increase in the number of published articles and citations during the whole period. It also found that the U.S., U.K, and China are the most productive countries with a predominance of North American and Asian organizations supporting and fostering researches. The principal contribution of this article is the analysis of keywords from 2011 to the first half of 2019. The trend shows a convergence on the concepts of efficiency and local government over the last few years, which are related to sustainability and natural environment. Future research in this field should address the relationship between efficiency in the allocation of local resources and the environmental sustainability of municipalities. • A bibliometric review of local government efficiency was conducted. • The paper identifies publications that serve as a guide to the local policymakers. • A recent worldwide trend in this field is based on environment. • A pending subject of local government efficiency is a geopolitical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]