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

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  • Soukopová Jana
  • Klimovský Daniel

Abstract

Local governments are responsible for the delivery of a large variety of very different public services. The 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 efficiency of “production” and the efficiency 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 find 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 influence on efficiency. 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. The results of the presented analysis show a clear relationship of dependence between the inter-municipal cooperation and the relevant costs, and it confirms the assumption that the Czech local governments undoubtedly prefer the position of “providers” in the field 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-efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Soukopová Jana & Klimovský Daniel, 2016. "Local Governments and Local Waste Management in the Czech Republic: Producers or Providers?," NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 9(2), pages 217-237, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:njopap:v:9:y:2016:i:2:p:217-237:n:10
    DOI: 10.1515/nispa-2016-0021
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    1. Germà Bel & Marianna Sebo, 2018. "“Does inter-municipal cooperation really reduce delivery costs? An empirical evaluation of the role of scale economies, transaction costs, and governance arrangements”," IREA Working Papers 201816, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jul 2018.
    2. Sedmihradská Lucie, 2018. "Inter-Municipal Cooperation in the Czech Republic: A Public Finance Perspective," NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 11(2), pages 153-170, December.

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