Agencification and Public Sector Performance: A systematic comparison in 20 countries

Abstract

The increased establishment of semi-autonomous agencies in most countries from the 1980s on has been justified by claims of expected improvement in public sector performance. Empirical research to test these claims has been scarce, based on single cases and showing mixed results. This study tests these claims at the macro level in twenty countries using a range of indicators and variables. Overall, we find a negative effect of agencification on both public sector output and efficiency. This refutes the economic claims about agencification.

Autonomous Agencies, Happy Citizens? Challenging the Satisfaction Claim

“…In some cases, such as in the tax case in this study, blame deflection can be observed, but this does not seem to work in the police case. Combined with the notion that agencification is associated with negative effects on public sector efficiency (Overman and Van Thiel 2016), the decision to set up a semiautonomous agency to deliver public tasks could be costly and might yield less than expected.…”

Video-Conference Interviews: Ethical and Methodological Concerns in the Context of Health Research

“…Bach, 2012;Pollitt et al, 2001). On the other hand, a recent study found a negative effect of agencification on both public sector output and efficiency (Overman and Van Thiel, 2015).…”

“…Waluyo, 2013b), and conducted at the macro level (e.g. Overman and van Thiel, 2015). Agencification has scarcely been researched from the viewpoint of accounting and financial reporting (Waluyo, 2014a).…”

“…Agency is defined as a set of institution, or structure, for delivering public services proposed by government actors (James, 2001) and has certain degree of autonomy from their respective ministry in policy decision making and over personnel, financial and managerial matters (Christensen et al, 2008) including business plan and budget (Waluyo, 2006a), accounting system (Waluyo, 2006b), costing system (Biswan and Waluyo, 2014) and organization structure (Overman and Van Thiel, 2015). Many have claimed that the idea of agencification would trigger the agency to be more professional, their management would be more business-like, and they would offer higher quality services compared to traditional government bureaucracy (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992;Pollitt et al, 2001) as they have a minimum standard of service delivery (Waluyo, 2007).…”

Compositional Changes in Public Expenditure and Economic Growth: Time Series Evidence from Pakistan

“…The study also indicates towards the sensitivity of the results of different studies and attributes it to the problems of data type, specification of the underlying models and econometric techniques. Overman and Van Thiel (2016) identified different aspects of public sector performance including efficiency, effectiveness, compliance, implementation, quality, meeting standards of good governance, sustainability, and so on. It is evident that productivity of public expenditure plays important role in both fiscal adjustment and its sustainability, particularly in situations when the government has limited resources at its disposal to support public services.…”