IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v4y1976i1p56-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Statistical Estimation of an Operating Cost Function for Municipal Refuse Collection

Author

Listed:
  • Harry M. Kitchen

    (Trent University, Ontario)

Abstract

This study is both an attempt to isolate those factors which contribute to the variation in average unit costs of collecting refuse and an attempt to examine the extent to which economies of scale exist. The model employed states that the average per capita cost to a municipality is a function of five categories of factors. Within the categories, a number of variables were postulated to have some significant effect on the per unit cost. However, the unavailability of some data and lack of variation in other data reduced the actual model so that in the final analysis ten variables were found to significantly affect costs. The results from the sample indicated that average costs increased in municipalities with populations of up to 324,000 and only began to fall when cities exceeded this size. A number of other variables exerted in one direction or another a significant effect on costs. A further statistical analysis of this sort may prove to be rather fruitless. What is perhaps needed is a more in-depth descriptive analysis of the institutional implications of the factors affecting the whole operation of refuse collection.

Suggested Citation

  • Harry M. Kitchen, 1976. "A Statistical Estimation of an Operating Cost Function for Municipal Refuse Collection," Public Finance Review, , vol. 4(1), pages 56-76, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:4:y:1976:i:1:p:56-76
    DOI: 10.1177/109114217600400105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114217600400105
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/109114217600400105?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bodkin, Ronald G & Conklin, David W, 1971. "Scale and Other Determinants of Municipal Government Expenditures in Ontario: A Quantitative Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 12(3), pages 465-481, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bozec, Richard, 2004. "L’analyse comparative de la performance entre les entreprises publiques et les entreprises privées : le problème de mesure et son impact sur les résultats," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 80(4), pages 619-654, Décembre.
    2. Núria Bosch & Francisco Pedraja & Javier Suárez-Pandiello, 2001. "The efficiency of refuse collection services in Spanish municipalities: do non-controllable variables matter?," Working Papers 2001/4, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    3. Tawil, Natalie, 1999. "Flow Control and Rent Capture in Solid Waste Management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 183-201, March.
    4. Germa Bel & Anton Costas, 2004. "Do public sector reforms get rusty? An empirical analysis on privatization of solid waste collection," Public Economics 0409014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Navarro-Espigares, José Luis & Martín-Segura, José Aureliano & Pérez-López, César & Maraver-Tarifa, Guillermo, 2018. "Waste Management in the Spanish Municipalities: Is Commitment to Local Agenda 21 more than good Intentions?," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 40, pages 35-56.
    6. Werner W. Pommerehne & Charles Beat Blankart, 1979. "Les économies d'échelles dans les services urbains," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 30(2), pages 338-354.
    7. Soukopová, Jana & Vaceková, Gabriela & Klimovský, Daniel, 2017. "Local waste management in the Czech Republic: Limits and merits of public-private partnership and contracting out," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 201-209.
    8. Rosalia Castellano & Gaetano Musella & Gennaro Punzo, 2019. "The effect of environmental attitudes and policies on separate waste collection: the case of Insular Italy," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 63-85, April.
    9. James Bennett & Manuel Johnson, 1979. "Public versus private provision of collective goods and services: garbage collection revisited," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 55-63, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Germa Bel & Anton Costas, 2006. "Do Public Sector Reforms Get Rusty? Local Privatization in Spain," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24.
    2. Hirota, Haruaki & Yunoue, Hideo, 2011. "Municipal mergers and special provisions of local council members in Japan," MPRA Paper 37485, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Alexander Eck & Carolin Fritzsche & Jan Kluge & Joachim Ragnitz & Felix Rösel, 2015. "Fiscal Capacity and Determining Structural Characteristics of the Eastern German Laender," ifo Dresden Studien, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 76.
    4. Iliopoulos, Panagiotis & De Witte, Kristof, 2024. "The expenditure composition and trade-offs in local government budgets," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    5. Juan Luis Gómez-Reino & Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2021. "Evidence on economies of scale in local public service provision: a meta-analysis," Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization 2103, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    6. Reingewertz, Yaniv, 2014. "Fiscal Decentralization - a Survey of the Empirical Literature," MPRA Paper 59889, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Gabriel P. Dekel, 1995. "Housing Density: A Neglected Dimension of Fiscal Impact Analysis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 32(6), pages 935-951, June.
    8. Werner W. Pommerehne & Charles Beat Blankart, 1979. "Les économies d'échelles dans les services urbains," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 30(2), pages 338-354.
    9. Fukushige Mototsugu & Yingxin Shi, 2016. "Efficient scale of prefectural government in China," China Finance and Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 88-109.
    10. Stefán B. Gunnlaugsson, 2017. "Credit Risk Of Icelandic Municipalities," Oradea Journal of Business and Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 2(2), pages 7-15, September.
    11. Bernardino Benito & María-Dolores Guillamón & Ana-María Ríos, 2017. "The electoral budget cycle on municipal waste collection expenditure," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(41), pages 4161-4179, September.
    12. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2013. "Fiscal Decentralization in Peru: A Perspective on Recent Developments and Future Challenges," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1324, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    13. Blankart, Charles B., 1977. "Zunehmende Skalenerträge in der Nutzung als wohlfahrtsökonomisches Problem," Discussion Papers, Series I 98, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    14. Katsuyoshi Nakazawa & Tomohisa Miyashita, 2013. "Municipality amalgamation in Japan: A survival analysis of the timings of the amalgamation process," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201338, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    15. Germa Bel & Anton Costas, 2004. "Do public sector reforms get rusty? An empirical analysis on privatization of solid waste collection," Public Economics 0409014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Soukopová Jana & Nemec Juraj & Matějová Lenka & Struk Michal, 2014. "Municipality Size and Local Public Services: Do Economies of Scale Exist ?," NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 7(2), pages 151-171, December.
    17. Mototsugu Fukushige & Yingxin Shi, 2014. "Efficient Scale of Local Government in China: Quantile Regression Approach to County-Level Data," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 14-15, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:4:y:1976:i:1:p:56-76. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.