Economies of Size in Highway Maintenance and Administration: A Preliminary Analysis for the Counties of New York State

Lesher, William G.; Mapp, Harry P.

doi:10.1017/s0163548400000686

J. Northeast. Agric. Econ. Counc.

1974

DOI: 10.1017/s0163548400000686

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Economies of Size in Highway Maintenance and Administration: A Preliminary Analysis for the Counties of New York State

William G. Lesher

Harry P. Mapp

Abstract: “Give the government back to the people,” a popular phrase in recent months, exemplifies the concern over the proper role of the federal, state and local units of government in providing and financing public services. Constituents are frustrated by bureaucratic programs, frequently insensitive to local needs, that are initiated at higher levels of government. They are equally frustrated by the inability of units of local government to initiate and finance programs designed to satisfy the needs of the local com… Show more

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Cited by 6 publications

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The Cost of Education – A Synthetic Approach

Sadler¹,

Martin

Ching

1976

J. Northeast. Agric. Econ. Counc.

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There is perennial interest in the quality of education relative to its cost. For example, several Supreme Courts have ruled that funding education on the basis of a real property tax is unconstitutional because it makes the quality of a child's education dependent upon the wealth of his parents and neighbors. California, Michigan, Texas, and other states have focused on this problem, though the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Texas decision (Rodriquez et. al. vs. San Antonio). These cases illustrate continuing interest in educational quality and cost. At the school level, the relation between quality and cost is also well known. Most, if not all, school administrators continually face the problem of providing education with rapidly increasing costs. In Nevada, for example, education costs have been increasing at a rate of 13.5 percent per year.

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The Cost of Education – A Synthetic Approach

Sadler¹,

Martin

Ching

1976

J. Northeast. Agric. Econ. Counc.

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Size and Cost Efficiency in the Production of Local Road Services

Helfrich

Vitaliano

1998

Public Works Management & Policy

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The authors analyze 925 town highway departments in New York to determine potential economies from consolidation and the degree of cost efficiency. Only 15% of departments would reduce costs by merging, resulting in an average 13% reduction in expenditures. In addition, all of the towns are cost inefficient by an average 17%. Size economies are estimated using a log quadratic stochastic frontier regression model. The estimated cost curve is a textbook U shape with a mean cost elasticity of 0.97, indicating that most towns are operating at the minimum point of the curve. The composed error model is used to estimate cost inefficiency, which is not systematically linked to size inefficiency. However, 14 very small departments are quite cost inefficient.

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Measuring the Economic Efficiency of Producing Rural Road Services

Deller

Nelson

1991

American J Agri Economics

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The research reported here examines the ability of a sample of Midwest township officials to produce low-volume rural road services in an economically efficient manner. Farrell-type measures of input use and scale efficiency are reported. Results suggest that over 50% of costs may be unnecessarily incurred because of input use inefficiency. Correlation between output measures and the efficiency measures suggests that larger jurisdictions are more efficient than smaller jurisdictions. In addition, 84.5% of the townships exhibit technology characterized by increasing returns to scale. These results suggest that jurisdictional consolidation of production-related responsibilities may yield substantial cost savings.The efficient allocation of resources by local government remains an important issue, especially given the small scale of operation inherent to many rural governments. At issue is the ability of local public officials to control costs in the face of shrinking revenue sources. The research reported in this article provides some empirical evidence on the economic efficiency of a sample of small rural governments in the Midwest (illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) vested with rural road responsibilities.' Farrell-type measures of efficiency are computed for managerial and scale efficiency in order to test the ability of local public officials to provide rural road services in a least cost fashion.The paper contains six sections. The first section describes managerial and scale efficiency within a public setting. The concepts of efficiency reference sets and efficiency measurement are then discussed.

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Economies of Size in Highway Maintenance and Administration: A Preliminary Analysis for the Counties of New York State

Cited by 6 publications

References 1 publication

The Cost of Education – A Synthetic Approach

The Cost of Education – A Synthetic Approach

Size and Cost Efficiency in the Production of Local Road Services

Measuring the Economic Efficiency of Producing Rural Road Services

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