Does Cooperation Reduce Service Delivery Costs? Evidence from Residential Solid Waste Services

Bel, Germà; Fageda, Xavier; Mur, Melania

doi:10.1093/jopart/mus059

Cited by 128 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…However, this is a somewhat tricky conclusion. On the one hand, the inter-municipal cooperation has proved to unequivocally infl uence decreases in waste-management expenditure (this result is similar to, e.g., Bel et al 2014). On the other hand, intermunicipal cooperation forms oft en overlap with hybrid forms, and many inter-municipal companies are co-owned by both local governments and private companies within various public-private partnerships.…”

Section: Conclusion and Implications For Practicesupporting

confidence: 57%

“…Th e relation between the manner of ensuring public utility services and eff ectiveness was studied by a number of "Western" authors, fi rst mostly in the USA, Canada and the UK (Hirsch 1965;Stevens 1978;McDavid 1985;Domberger et al 1986;Callan and Th omas 2001), later also in European countries, for example in Spain (Bel and Costas 2006;Bel et al 2010;Bel et al 2014;Benito et al 2014), the Netherlands Gradus 2003 2007;Gradus et al 2014Gradus et al , 2016, Italy (Lombrano 2009), etc. Recently, the debate was also opened in the "Eastern European" countries, and a number of studies was conducted in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (for example Nemec et al 2005Nemec et al , 2012Ochrana et al 2007;Nemec 2013, Soukopová andMalý 2013;Mikušová Meričková et al 2014).…”

Section: Rq3mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Local Governments and Local Waste Management in the Czech Republic: Producers or Providers?

Soukopová¹,

Klimovský²

2016

NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy

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Local governments are responsible for the delivery of a large variety of very different public services. Th e article is focused on two issues: 1) we try to discover whether the local governments in the Czech Republic prefer to be "producers" or "providers" of the waste-collection services; 2) we test and compare the effi ciency of "production" and the effi ciency of "provision", and for this purpose we take into account various factors, inter alia inter-municipal cooperation, the existence of hybrid organizations, economies of scale etc. A main goal is to fi nd out what the local governments in the Czech Republic prefer if they decide on the delivery of local services linked to waste management and what factors are the most important ones from the perspective of their potential infl uence on effi ciency. Concerning the data, we analyse linked open data on municipal solid waste expenditure collected by the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic and data relating to features of waste collection obtained via a questionnaire-based survey which was carried out at the turn of 2015 -2016. Th e results of the presented analysis show a clear relationship of dependence between the inter-municipal cooperation and the relevant costs, and it confi rms the assumption that the Czech local governments undoubtedly prefer the position of "providers" in the fi eld of the local waste management. Paradoxically, the results show that neither internal nor external provision of waste-collection services is a key factor of cost-effi ciency.

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Section: Conclusion and Implications For Practicesupporting

confidence: 57%

Section: Rq3mentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Governments and Local Waste Management in the Czech Republic: Producers or Providers?

Soukopová¹,

Klimovský²

2016

NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy

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“…Cooperation between localities can exploit economies of scale (Bel, Fageda, and Mur 2014;Bel and Warner 2015), thwart rent seeking by politicians by making steering more difficult (Shleifer and Vishny 1994), and allow risk sharing between municipalities, reducing intertemporal budget volatility. The drawback is that shared ownership may intensify principal-agent problems, as the operator must serve multiple masters (Van Thiel 2016;Waterman and Meier 1998).…”

Section: Flexible Majority Public Ownershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

The efficiency and effectiveness of municipally owned corporations: a systematic review

Voorn

Genugten

Thiel

2017

Local Government Studies

139

159

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Municipally owned corporations (MOCs) are increasingly utilised to provide local public services, but little remains known about their efficiency and effectiveness. In this article, we offer a typology of MOCs, explore the variables that affect their behaviour, and perform a systematic review of public administration articles published between 2001 and 2015 on their efficiency and effectiveness. We find that MOCs are often more efficient than local bureaucracies in the provision of services such as refuse collection, water distribution, and transit services, although they also have high initial failure rates. We conclude that municipally owned corporations are a viable means for delivering some local public services for localities capable of initiating and managing complex contracts. In light of the scarcity of literature on this topic, our conclusions remain tentative, and we encourage additional research into this growing phenomenon.

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“…Likewise, Dijkgraaf and Gradus (, ) use wide national samples in the Netherlands, which are also highly representative. Bel et al () analyse costs from cooperation controlling for production form, which works in environments where cooperative provision can be combined with private production. Cooperation and privatization are not incompatible in Spain.…”

Section: Empirical Evidence On Cooperation and Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inter‐municipal Cooperation and Costs: Expectations and Evidence

Bel

Warner

2014

Public Administration

Self Cite

236

217

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Abstract:Austerity and fiscal crisis make the search for cost saving reforms in local government more critical. While cost savings from privatization have frequently proven ephemeral, inter-municipal cooperation has been a relatively understudied reform. We analyze the literature on cost savings under cooperation and find savings are dependent on (1) the cost structure of public services, particularly those related to scale and density economies and externalities, (2) the structure of local government (size, metropolitan location, powers granted by the nation or regional state), and 3) the governance framework at the local/regional scale where cooperation varies from informal to formal. European studies give more emphasis to cost savings, while US studies focus on coordination concerns arising from the higher degree of devolution in the US local government system.

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Does Cooperation Reduce Service Delivery Costs? Evidence from Residential Solid Waste Services

Cited by 128 publications

References 54 publications

Local Governments and Local Waste Management in the Czech Republic: Producers or Providers?

Local Governments and Local Waste Management in the Czech Republic: Producers or Providers?

The efficiency and effectiveness of municipally owned corporations: a systematic review

Inter‐municipal Cooperation and Costs: Expectations and Evidence

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