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Academic literature has made an effort to demonstrate the positive effects of privatisation reforms on government performance and economic growth. However, there is no sufficient evidence to support the benefits of privatisation in terms of government spending efficiency. This study analyses the correlation between privatisation and government spending efficiency. Our empirical results do not support a positive effect of privatisation on government spending efficiency. These findings are relevant because they suggest that, although privatisation has been usually seen as a tool to balance public finances, it does not mean that government spending efficiency will be higher after privatising State‐owned enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the association between fiscal decentralization and municipality efficiency by conducting an empirical analysis focused on the Italian context. We conduct a cost-efficiency analysis based on a stochastic frontier approach with municipality and time fixed effects modelling the decentralization effect with a continuous variable, taxation autonomy, which allows for accounting for the degree and evolution of fiscal decentralization over time. The empirical analysis provides convincing evidence that fiscal decentralization is positively associated with municipalities’ efficiency. The positive effect is confirmed when additional controls are included into the model and persists to robustness checks. This evidence lends support for policies aimed at making more closely aligned expenditure and revenue decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research indicates that total or current expenditures have been most commonly used in sub-central or local government's efficiency analysis as dependent variables, and a proxy for the cost of service provision. Our research applied in the case of Polish districts for 2019 and 2020 indicates two important results: firstly, regardless of whether total or current expenditures have been used, the determinants indicate the same direction of impact, and, secondly, the COVID-19 pandemic did not change the direction of the impact. The regression results confirm the positive direction that the administrative, educational, protection, and safety variables have on dependent variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities, like any organization, must attend to the needs of the environment to provide quality services. Among the various aspects related to educational quality, administrative efficiency management has gained interest in recent times. This is due to the need to optimize resources and streamline the daily operations of an educational institution. This scoping review examines how efficiency is being measured in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Taking as a reference the proposed methodology by Arksey and O'Malley and the PRISMA Scr (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) guide, we performed a search of the literature in the Scopus database from 2017 to 2022. As a result, different ways to measure administrative process efficiency were found, such as formulated models, methods, and indicators that show quantitative benefits. A significant finding was Lean or Six Sigma practices to improve administrative efficiency, in addition to the consideration of the interest group opinion through the application of measurement instruments to measure the impact on the user satisfaction level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic continues to have a substantial impact on the economies and livelihoods of all countries. Central and local government administrators are facing a critical issue of resource utilization efficiency due to their limited resources. This paper employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the concept of an assurance region (AR) to assess the relative efficiency of administrative divisions in Taiwan, whose effectiveness has been praised by other countries' administrators and citizens, regarding COVID‐19 pandemic prevention and control. The input factors used were the cumulative number of deaths (an undesirable factor) and expenditures, and the output factors were the average number of unconfirmed citizens aged 65 and older, the average number of unconfirmed citizens aged 0–64, and the cumulative number of vaccinations. Notably, because there are many COVID‐19 variants with different characteristics, reaching a consensus AR among experts is difficult. Thus, different ARs were compared, and the most representative AR was identified for subsequent analysis. The main findings show that only Kaohsiung City was efficient, and Taipei City was the third worst due to inefficient operations. In addition, the administrative divisions were classified into four groups using cluster analysis based on the decomposition of aggregate efficiency to the contributions of the three outputs. The findings presented in this paper serve as a reference for both local government administrators and citizens, offering insights into relative efficiency and improvement directions. Moreover, they also provide guidance for resource allocation, future strategy adjustment, and development for central government administrators and citizens worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female representation may be a key factor in improving the quality of governance. In fact, the literature considers that the presence of women in organisations tends to improve performance. In this context, this paper attempts to analyse whether the presence of women in municipal councils has an influence on the efficiency of public services for a sample of 141 Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants for the period 2014–2018. Our results show a U-shaped relationship between the number of female councillors and the level of efficiency in Spanish municipalities. This means that the presence of women is positively associated with municipal efficiency but only if the number of female councillors is relatively high. On the contrary, their voice and personal characteristics are diluted among their male counterparts, and efficiency may be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the effect of politicians' education levels on government efficiency. Using data on Norwegian local government, the paper measures efficiency by DEA-productivity indicators and comprehensive indicators of service production. The identification of causal effects exploits close (within-list) elections to design an instrumental variable for council shares with higher education. Consistent with survey data, the estimates show that better-educated politicians induce higher levels of efficiency, particularly for old-age care services. A similar empirical strategy indicates that political experience has small efficiency effects. Educational misrepresentation has modest effects on fiscal allocations and is mostly canceled out by the efficiency gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the efficiency of Italian local governments using Stochastic Frontier Analysis for the years 2010–2018. As a dependent variable of the cost function, we consider the total current expenditure for producing six 'essential' local public services: education (ancillary services), waste management, general administration, local police, public roads and planning, and social services. As outputs, we employ indicators for each of the six services in the multi-output cost function. In an alternative model specification, we use a composite indicator for the total output volume. Thus, we estimate a global efficiency score for each local government, for each year. The findings reveal that the total expenditure declined over time, more than proportionally than the contraction of output produced. Therefore, the global efficiency of Italian municipalities is estimated to be higher in 2018 than it was in 2010. Moreover, there is evidence of substantial scale economies and congestion effects, with municipalities with around 10,000 inhabitants being more efficient than their smaller and larger counterparts. Lastly, on average, local governments are more efficient in providing public services in the Northern regions than in the Southern ones, although efficiency does not decline monotonically moving South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power theories (e.g., social exchange theory, resource dependence theory) and efficiency theories (e.g., transaction cost analysis) offer very different perspectives on the design of contractual governance in marketing channels. Whereas power theory suggests that governance will reflect the preferences of powerful firms, efficiency theories argue that governance will maximize joint value. In this research, the authors provide an integrative framework that reconciles power and efficiency perspectives in the context of contractual marketing channel relationships. This framework discriminates between two methods of exercising power: ex ante (through a tightly specified, efficient contract that rewards the powerful firm through the price mechanism while providing strong safeguards for the weak firm) or ex post (through a loosely specified, inefficient contract that allows the powerful firm to exploit its power during renegotiations). The authors argue that power will cause channel governance to deviate from the efficient choice, but only to the extent that the powerful firm cannot price out (i.e., extract) the value it offers to the weaker firm ex ante. As exchange conditions become more uncertain, power will demonstrate stronger effects on governance. This theory is supported with data from studies on contractual research-and-development relationships and procurement contracts for customized industrial products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the connotation and structure of government service resources, data of government service resources in L city from 2019 to 2021 are used to calculate the efficiency of government service resource allocation in each county and region in different periods, particularly by adding the government cloud platform and cloud computing resources to the government service resource data and applying the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, which has practical significance for the development and innovation of government services. On this basis, patterns and evolutionary trends of government service resource allocation efficiency in each region during the study period are analyzed and discussed. Results are as follows. i) Overall efficiency level in the allocation of government service resources in L city is not high, showing an increasing annual trend among the high and low staggering. ii) Relative difference of allocation efficiency of government service resources is a common phenomenon of regional development, the existence and evolution of which are the direct or indirect influence and reflection of various aspects, such as economic strength and reform effort. iii) Data analysis for the specific points indicates that increased input does not necessarily lead to increased efficiency, some indicators have insufficient input or redundant output. Therefore, optimization of the physical, human, and financial resource allocation methods; and the intelligent online processing of government services achieved by the adoption of government cloud platform and cloud computing resources are the current objective choices to realize maximum efficiency in the allocation of government service resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to determine whether transparency influences efficiency of public services delivery and, therefore, the economic performance of municipal governments. First, and taking into account previous research, we select the appropriate inputs and outputs to calculate efficiency using several nonparametric methodologies such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), DEA-boostraping, Free Disposal Hull (FDH), order-m and order-α partial frontiers. Second, the results are related to different variables, with transparency playing a prominent role. In general, transparency influences efficiency, although this sometimes depends on the specific indicator used to measure the latter and on the methodology utilized to calculate it. In particular, our results show that the greater the economic and financial transparency and the more information there is on public service contracts and on urban planning and public works, the more efficient the municipality is, i.e. the more optimally the scarce resources of public administrations are managed. This is relevant for policy makers, as they have to implement policies that make administrations more transparent, which will facilitate the supervision of both users of services and upper governmental authorities (regional/central). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has reviewed the international literature on the explaining factors of efficiency of local governments from 1990 to June 2019. The main objective of this work is to explore the dynamics of the development of this line of research, not only to find out the terminology preferences that have dominated the pre‐ and post‐crisis period in this field but also to identify the latest worldwide research trends. For this purpose, a bibliometric and cluster analysis by fractional accounting has been carried out. The principal result of this article is twofold. First, during the whole period 1990–2019, the ranking of the most used terms is dominated by the keywords of the publications in the second subperiod 2008–2019. Second, the analysis of the latest trends, which has been extended until June 2021, shows that in recent years, the study of the determinants of local government efficiency has revolved around concepts related to environmental issues and new forms of local management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Electronic Information System (EIS) is a management system for electronic processes and documents, with a user-friendly interface and innovative work practices. The general objective of this study is to analyze the perception of users with the use of the EIS in a state company in Pernambuco. In the theoretical framework the following themes are addressed: Brazilian public administration, efficiency, information systems, EIS and its use in public administration. The methodology used was a case study of exploratory nature and quali-quantitative approach; data collection occurred through participant observation and online questionnaires. The results showed that the EIS brought agility to administrative procedures, being a differential that contributed to remote work. It is concluded that the EIS is a technological innovation tool that promoted improvements in administrative efficiency in the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, all regions in Indonesia have had negative economic growth. It also increased the poverty rate in the country. The government must allocate pro-growth and poverty reduction programs to maintain economic growth and simultaneously reduce poverty. This study aims to measure the relative efficiency of pro-growth poverty reduction spending of local governments in seven regions in Indonesia. This study compares the efficiency scores before and during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2015 to 2019 and 2020. The inputs are five types of government spending: education, health, economic, social protection, and infrastructure. The outputs are economic growth and poverty reduction. Data envelopment analysis with an output-oriented model and a return to scale variable approach is applied. The results show that the highest average local government efficiency score was in Kalimantan, with the lowest being in Sulawesi. The efficiency scores of local governments in the COVID-19 pandemic differ between regions: it remained stable in Kalimantan, increased in Java-Bali, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, and experienced a decline in Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, and Papua. The study concludes that economic growth and poverty reduction can simultaneously measure government efficiency. To be relatively efficient, local governments need to consider allocating pro-growth poverty reduction spending to improve the conditions of both outputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Management Issues / Problemy Zarządzania is the property of Problemy Zarzadzania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper elaborates the issues referring to the legal regulation of the principle of efficiency, its meaning, as well as application of this principle. The aim of this paper is to analyze the legal framework that defines the principle of efficiency in the administrative procedure in the Republic of North Macedonia, present an empirical analysis of data from the work of the State Commission for Decision-making in Administrative Procedure and Labor Relations Procedure in Second Instance, identify the factors that influence the consistent application of this principle, as well as offer recommendations for an improved application of the principle. The authors believe that although measures and activities that contribute to achieving the principle of efficiency in the administrative procedure have been applied, there are more measures that need to be taken, i.e., actions that would strengthen institutional capacity and enable a consistent implementation of this principle in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results-based budgeting (RBB) framework is a public management strategy in which economic resources are allocated to certain budget programs, oriented towards delivering specific products and results to the population. The present paper analyzes the regional governments' efficiency in using their economic resources, under the RBB framework, with an application to the Peruvian context. To this end, we employ a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with bootstrapping. In the first stage, different sectors of the regional governments are considered individually: education, security, health, sanitation, transportation, and recreation. In the second stage, the overall efficiency index is calculated using the sectoral indices obtained in the first stage. Finally, the factors or determinants influencing the level of efficiency are analyzed. The results show improvements in efficiency levels in the areas of health and sanitation, to the detriment of the rest of the sectors. The average overall efficiency level over the period 2013–2016 remains in the range of 0.25–0.30, which indicates an inefficiency level of 70%. Finally, the variables fiscal autonomy, capital stock, and population density show a positive relationship with respect to the overall efficiency index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of the study is to determine changes in the cost efficiency of the administration of public higher education in Poland. Design/methodology/approach: The biennial cost Malmquist productivity index was used to study changes in cost efficiency of 58 public higher education institutions in 2014-2016. The results were presented for 6 groups of universities, according to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland classification. Findings: The research shows that out of 6 groups of institutions accepted for the study, 2 achieved an increase and 1 a decrease in the Malmquist cost index in both study periods. Changes in the Malmquist cost index in the analyzed period are small as the index ranged from 0.98 to 1.06. Both component overall efficiency change and cost-technical change contributed to the change in the Malmquist index level. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation of the study are the analysis of changes in cost efficiency only. Additionally, only public universities supervised by the ministry responsible for higher education were studied. Future research should include changes in allocative efficiency using the Malmquist index. In addition, a larger research sample should be considered, taking into account other public universities, including medical, arts, etc., and non-public universities. Practical implications: The considerations presented are relevant to public university authorities. The article indicates the need to assess cost effectiveness in evaluating the functioning of a higher education institution. This belongs to the responsibilities of management control in terms of effectiveness and efficiency of HEIs and spending of public funds. Information on the variation of cost efficiency between HEIs, assigned to 6 groups, may become a stimulus to conduct an assessment of this economic category in a given unit and strive to improve it. Originality/value: The added value of the article is the use for the first time of the cost Malmquist index to examine higher education. Also, the use of a modified version of the cost Malmquist index to estimate efficiency assuming variable returns-to-scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between government efficiency—an important dimension of quality of government—and economic growth at the municipal level in 1,820 Spanish municipalities during the period 2008–2015. At this level of disaggregation, the literature is virtually nonexistent due to severe data constraints. The efficiency of local government provides an accurate indicator of how good local authorities are in managing their budget. This variable is expected to be highly correlated with other more traditional quality of government indicators, such as corruption. After computing our measure, we then use it in a growth regression framework. We find a dominant positive effect of government efficiency on income per capita growth, which is robust to a wide variety of scenarios. Our findings also suggest that increases in local government quality are particularly rewarding for the poorest municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to examine the likelihood of local governments remunicipalising public services that were previously contracted out. To do so, we studied a sample of 141 Spanish municipalities with between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, with particular reference to contracting back operations conducted in the period 2014–2016, using a random-effects panel logit model. We found that local authorities that contracted back public services were mainly influenced by the wish to achieve higher levels of efficiency, by political behaviour in a pre-electoral year, and by political corruption detected in the previous year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Italy, the provision of educational ancillary services (like meals and school transportation) is in charge of the municipalities. We investigate whether municipalities differ in their efficiency when providing these services and whether such heterogeneity explains some portion of the variability observed in pupils' test scores. This paper is the first application of a non-parametric order- m model and a two-stage multilevel regression model to a unique administrative dataset, made up of the entire population of Italian pupils tested in reading and mathematics at grade 5 (academic years 2012/2013 and 2014/2015). Results demonstrate that local governments have different efficiency levels in providing services to schools. The test scores' variability among pupils is not explained by different efficiency levels of local government in producing ancillary services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial empirical literature has investigated the performance of local authorities in a host of countries across the world. While this body of knowledge has made a significant contribution to our understanding of local government performance, including the role played by 'non-discretionary' environmental factors, much remains to be done. In an attempt to address some of the shortcomings of extant studies on the determinants of municipal performance, especially in terms of their treatment of environmental factors, in this paper we investigate the technical efficiency of local government in South Australia (SA) by examining input slacks (input excess) in the different municipal services However, in contrast to existing empirical work in the area, which is focused almost exclusively on the direct impact of determinants on efficiency scores, we examine the effects of determinants on input excess, in order to determine which factors stimulate local councils to perform inefficiently, then internalize their influence and filter out unobserved biases via a bootstrapping methodology to evaluate the managerial inefficiency of SA local government. We find that the efficiency of SA local councils is on average 0.734, implying that local councils could potentially improve their performance by 0.267 to reach the full efficiency. After filtering out the influence of environmental factors on inputs slacks and unobserved disturbances with the bootstrapping method, the residual inefficiency can be attributed to managerial inefficiency. Various policy implications are then considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the effect of natural resource revenue on expenditure efficiency. Using a panel of Colombian municipalities over 2003–2011, we use a two‐step procedure to estimate the effect of natural resource revenue on municipal efficiency. First, the technical efficiency of local governments is calculated through a robust non‐parametric method. These estimates are then used in a second step to evaluate how the local government's efficiency varies with exogenous variation in royalties. Our findings indicate that royalties reduce efficiency in the provision of education and health care services, providing evidence of one of the mechanisms explaining the natural resource curse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the level of municipal transparency influences the level of efficiency, which is measured by parametric and non-parametric techniques. More concretely, the findings suggest that the most transparent municipalities in terms of financial and economic information, as well as information on public services contracts, tend to be more efficient. The results were obtained for a sample of the 100 largest Spanish local governments over the period 2008–14, which focuses attention on the information disclosed by local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous empirical evidence on municipal efficiency mostly uses cross-sectional data which makes it impossible to separate unobserved heterogeneity from inefficiency. Furthermore, they also typically use a two-stage approach which has been widely criticized as the assumptions in the first stage are violated in the second stage, generating biased results. We contribute to the literature by putting forward a one stage approach with parametric models and panel data to estimate municipal efficiency of 324 Chilean municipalities for the period 2008–2018. We take into account observed and unobserved heterogeneity, incorporating them both into the frontier and jointly estimating efficiency of all the municipalities in the sample. Our results suggest that Chilean municipalities have a relevant degree of inefficiency as they could achieve the same provision of services with 53% −61% less resources, depending on the specification, and that there is large heterogeneity in their level of efficiency. Finally, we also find that municipalities with a high dependency on the Municipal Common Fund are less efficient supporting the notion of local governments fiscal laziness present in the literature ... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security of a well-functioning country requires an administrative and defence management system. The author presents the operation and activity system of the Hungarian disaster management organizational system, paying special attention to the examination of smart devices that improve the efficiency of public administration. The author demonstrates in his research that the use of smart devices and technologies contributes to the reduction of disaster risk, damage, and helps disaster prevention. Based on the applied research methods, the author proves that due to the identified problems, the increasing number of inspections and the growing information society expectations require us to use the tools and technologies of disaster management authorities to strengthen the safety factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brazilian Business Law Journal / Administração de Empresas em Revista is the property of Administracao de Empresas em Revista and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although a voluminous empirical literature has examined local government efficiency, much less attention has focused on municipal effectiveness and almost no effort has been directed at the relationship between efficiency and effectiveness. In this paper, we seek to add to the latter nascent literature by investigating the relationship between operational efficiency and local resident satisfaction for three different municipal categories (metropolitan, regional, and rural councils) in the Victorian local government system over the period 2014–2015 to 2017–2018 using data envelopment analysis and an advanced regression model. We find that although a strong relationship exists between efficiency and satisfaction for metropolitan and regional councils, the same is not true of rural councils. This paper investigates the relationship between operational efficiency and local resident satisfaction for three different Victorian municipal categories (metropolitan, regional, and rural councils) for the period 2014–2015 to 2017–2018. We find a strong relationship between efficiency and satisfaction for metropolitan and regional councils, but not for rural councils [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Perspectivas de Politicas Publicas is the property of Universidad Nacional de Lanus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The austerity policies implemented in Portugal because of the bailout agreement between the Portuguese Government and the Troika include measures to increase performance and reduce costs. An analysis of local government efficiency and an assessment of its determinants is highly relevant for policy purposes, particularly when new efforts to decentralize are being discussed. The aim of this research is to evaluate the efficiency of the 278 mainland municipalities in Portugal using a two-stage procedure, combining data envelopment analysis in the first phase with fractional response models in the second. The analysis is performed for 2010 and 2015, before and after the Troika's intervention in Portugal. Results show a similar pattern for both years, in the two stages. The results also indicate that there is no structural changes from 2010 to 2015, suggesting that the reforms implemented in municipalities did not succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse overall cost efficiency in Spanish local governments during the crisis period (2008–2015). To this end, we first consider some of the most popular nonparametric methods to evaluate local government efficiency, data envelopment analysis and free disposal hull, as well as recent proposals, namely the order-m partial frontier and the nonparametric estimator proposed by Kneip et al. (Econom Theory 24(6):1663–1697, 2008). Second, to compare the four methods and choose the most appropriate one for our particular context and dataset (local government cost efficiency in Spain), we carry out an experiment via Monte Carlo simulations and discuss the relative performance of the efficiency scores under various scenarios. Our results suggest that there is no one approach suitable for all efficiency analysis. We find that for our sample of 1846 Spanish local governments, the average cost efficiency would have been between 0.5417 and 0.7543 during the period 2008–2015, suggesting that Spanish local governments could have achieved the same level of local outputs with about 25% and 46% fewer resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is challenging for governments to transfer public spending into successful public programs and projects. Additionally, good governance of the public financial system is essential for economic and human development. The author suggested a model to evaluate the efficiency of public spending using data from 71 countries during the period 1996–2017. The model addresses the ability of public allocations to reach government's objectives (e.g., controlling unemployment and enhancing economic growth) in addition to including factors related to sustainable development. Thus, econometric and statistical tests are carried out to validate the model and to measure its stability and accuracy. Building on the current model, we could therefore apply the model to individual countries to better understand each country's public spending system and to help decision makers efficiently execute their national strategic plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study aims to measure the efficiency of village government spending and examine the effects of village transfers (Dana Desa) and institutional properties on its efficiency. Background Problems: The village law has endowed extra grants to village governments, which questions if the villages are prepared to adequately handle large increases in funding. Novelty: While previous studies address the misappropriation in spending within the municipal dimension, this study explores the spending efficiency of the autonomous sub-municipal governments and explains the impacts of both lump-sum grants and bureaucracy factors on spending efficiency. Research Methods: This study analyzes the Indonesian 2014 Village Governments' dataset, using the meta-cost frontier in order to measure village spending efficiency, then it probes the causal impacts of endowed fiscal transfers and bureaucratic factors on the obtained efficiency. Findings/Results: The results suggest that granting direct transfers would exacerbate the spending inefficiencies of autonomous villages. Administrative factors such as a large bureaucracy and a lack of bureaucratic capacity within the body of village governments positively affect spending inefficiencies. Conclusion: The result of this research reflects that there is a need to evaluate the village governance policy to increase spending efficiencies, specifically focusing on the adequacy of village institutions to handle village transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Central European Public Administration Review is the property of University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Public Administration and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Research background: Income inequality and poverty attract a lot of attention among politicians, activists as well as scientists, who are trying to find a solution to these socio-economic problems. State intervention is commonly expected in this field, however, there is no agreement about the most efficient methods and instruments, as well as about the scale of public expenditure for the purpose of limiting poverty and inequality. Purpose of the article: The aim of the paper is to specify efficiency of government social spending in reducing problems of poverty and income inequality in the EU countries. Moreover, the attention is paid to changes in the efficiency in a period of the 2007 crisis occurrence and its overcoming and to sources of the changes. Methods: To fulfill the main goal of the paper, the DEA method is used, which enables to compare the social efficiency of the EU countries. The Malmquist index is also calculated and decomposed to identify changes in the efficiency and their sources in the crisis period. Data used in the analyses were obtained from Eurostat and OECD databases and cover the period from 2007 to 2016 year. Findings & Value added: The main findings of the paper shed some light on the differences in social efficiency of government spending in the EU countries. Generally, the countries with a higher level of social spending are also those with lower efficiency in inequality reduction, however, the relationship doesn't appear for poverty alleviation. Thus, the research suggests some substitution between the scale and the efficiency of social spending, at least for the inequality dimension. Moreover, some differences in a social model can be found between the countries of the South and of the North: the countries of the South focus their social policy mainly on inequality reduction, while the Scandinavian countries as well as some other affluent societies direct their public support mainly on poverty alleviation. The research also shows that in the crisis period decreases in efficiency concerned mainly the poverty dimension. It reflects the fact that the poor were the losers of the crisis in favor of the middle classes. The efficiency losses were induced by negative changes in the current usage of public sources, while institutional reforms positively influenced the efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries have been continuously under the pressure to improve public balances and efficiency of public spending. Economic crisis which started during 2007 weakened public finances at the state and local level in countries all over the world. In Croatia local government budgets are still below the pre-crisis level in many local government units. This paper empirically examines efficiency of public expenditures at the regional level. Performance has been investigated by developing a composite indicator of output. Spending efficiency at the regional level was analysed using Data Envelopment Analysis methodology. Results suggest that there are large differences at the regional level in using resources to provide public services. The results show that the local government units in the least efficient county should on average decrease their expenses by 55 percent, while achieving the same performance to become efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the literature on local government efficiency by meta‐reviewing 360 observations retrieved from 54 papers published from 1993 to 2016. The meta‐regression is based on a random‐effects model estimated with the two‐step random‐effects maximum likelihood (REML) technique proposed by Gallet and Doucouliagos. Results indicate that the study design matters when estimating a frontier in local government. We find that studies focusing on technical efficiency provide higher efficiency scores than works evaluating cost efficiency. The same applies when using panel data instead of cross‐section data. Interestingly, studies that use the Free Disposal Hull (FDH) approach yield, on average, higher efficiency scores than papers employing the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, thereby suggesting that in this literature the convexity hypothesis of the production set is a matter. Finally, the efficiency of local government increases with the level of development of the analysed countries and is positively related to the national integrity of the legal system. The opposite holds when considering the corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the determinants of local government efficiency taking into account the presence of spatial interactions among neighbouring municipalities. To do so, first we estimate an efficiency index using the robust order-m methodology in Valencian municipalities (Spain). Second, we examine the socio-economic, political and budgetary factors that might influence efficiency levels. Finally, we analyse the spatial interactions present in our data. The results of estimating a spatial autoregressive model show that government efficiency in neighbouring municipalities positively affects the local government's own efficiency. This highlights the importance of considering spatial dependence structures in studies on efficiency in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work environment investments are important in order to create a healthy and safe workplace. This article presents findings from a seven-step interventions process aimed at examining and following-up work environment investments in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a particular focus on air contaminants. Three different cases were analyzed and included in the study: (a) an educational center for welding; (b) a paint station in furniture manufacturing; (c) a joinery in furniture manufacturing. The results show that the work environment investments were highly appreciated by the employees and managers, but at the same time the investment could be optimized through markedly decreased exposure levels for the worker. Factors such as follow-ups of the investment, education and training in how to use the equipment, worker involvement in the process and leadership engagement are important in order to optimize work environment investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper derives efficiency scores for around 8,500 schools in 30 countries, using Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data and a nonparametric approach called data envelopment analysis as method. On average, achievement scores of schools can be increased by 27%, holding inputs constant. Efficiency scores vary considerably both between and within countries; the role of managerial efficiency and structural differences due to operating in different contexts (countries) is disentangled. Subsequently, a number of school-level factors are found to be correlated with efficiency scores and indicate potential directions for improving educational results. Heterogeneity of such characteristics across countries and along the distribution of efficiency is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficient management of the available resources in local governments has been a topic of high interest in the field of public sector. We provide an extensive and comprehensive review of the existing literature on local governments' efficiency from a global point of view, covering all articles from 1990 to August 2016. This paper is the first of two. It covers the basic aspects related to local governments' efficiency measurement not taking into account the effect of environmental conditions. First, we show a detailed overview of the studies investigating public sector efficiency across various countries, comparing the data and samples employed, and the main results obtained. Second, we describe which techniques have been used for measuring efficiency in the context of local governments. Third, we summarize the inputs and outputs used. Finally, we discuss some operative directions and considerations for further research in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relationship between intermunicipal cooperation and efficiency of public service provision. Organisational arrangements of public service production, including self-provision, joint provision or contracting, affect incentives and internal transaction costs. Hence, cooperation gains from scale effects need to be balanced against technical inefficiencies. We analyse relative efficiency of wastewater disposal for German municipalities. We employ a conditional analysis in conjunction with a metafrontier approach to calculate relative efficiency measures and technology gap ratios controlling for organisational arrangements and further environmental variables. Jointly providing municipalities and contractor municipalities exhibit lower technical efficiency than self-providing and contracting municipalities. As confirmed by previous research, scale effects from cooperation and contracting apply to small municipalities primarily. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research examines the technical, purely technical, global, scale and mix efficiencies of the EPSs that are part of the Contributory scheme in Colombia during 2011. Nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method was used, specifically the models CCR-O, BCC-O, SBM, -O-C which are focused on outputs to assess the efficiency of the sector, as a source of information the Superintendency of Health was used. From the 17 companies studied, 12 of these proved to be globally efficient, these were: Alianza salud, Comfenalco Valle, Compensar, S.O.S, E.P.M, Comfenalco Antioquia, Sura, Famisanar, Fondo Pasivo Ferrocarriles, Golden Group, Nueva EPS y Colpatria. The SBM-O-C, CCR-O, BCC-O averages efficiencies of the industry were 88.98%, 90.91%, 93.07%, respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that the sector presents a good performance on its efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The main aim of this article was to analyze the relationship of income inequality and government effectiveness with differences in efficiency in the use of health inputs to improve the under-five survival rate (U5SR) in developing countries. Robust Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and regression analysis were conducted using data for 47 developing countries for the periods 2000-2004, 2005-2009, and 2010-2012. The estimations show that countries with a more equal income distribution and better government effectiveness (i.e. a more competent bureaucracy and good quality public service delivery) may need fewer health inputs to achieve a specific level of the U5SR than other countries with higher inequality and worse government effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring local government efficiency is a complex task that has to take into account that they usually operate in a heterogeneous context. Therefore, the estimation of relative efficiency measures of their performance needs to account for the effect of contextual and exogenous variables. This should assure that the respective measures adequately reflect the portion of inefficiency that may be attributable to local authorities. In this paper, we apply time-dependent conditional frontier estimators to assess the performance of the 278 Portuguese mainland municipalities for the 2009-2014 period. By applying this nonparametric approach, we can avoid the strong assumptions on the specification of the estimated production function required by traditional two-stage methods. Furthermore, we examine the effect of contextual variables and time on the shape of the frontier and the distribution of inefficiencies. The results reveal that the local reforms do not seem to have achieved the pursued objective of improving the efficiency of local government performance. However, we can observe a small improvement in the last year of the period after the amalgamation of some civil parishes, thus it seems that this specific process might have had a certain impact in the short term. Moreover, we find that the economic and demographic indicators included as contextual variables in our model play an important role as influencing the production set, although those effects do not seem to vary much over time. This evidence is corroborated after conducting a second-stage nonparametric regression of the conditional efficiency measures over those variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of any institution is to have a management that would implement public policies, programs and projects aimed at fulfilling the mission of the institution and the objectives of the government, through the rational use of resources (often limited) and at the same time to satisfy stakeholders. Implement a system of internal control has emerged as a necessity from globalization and liberalization of financial markets, free movement of capital, information, people and goods through the application of internationally recognized standards and to be understood in a uniform manner. The research was focused on the one hand, the literature review Romanian and foreign legislation and internal control management system, providing a theoretical and practical approach, but on the other hand, we considered appropriate to perform a research on the application of internal control management system in member states of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]