IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ira/wpaper/202311.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

"Disentangling the separate and combined effects of privatization and cooperation on local government service delivery"

Author

Listed:
  • Germà Bel

    (Department of Econometrics, Statistics and Applied Economics. Universitat of Barcelona. John Keynes, 1-11, 08034 Barcelona, Spain.)

  • Thomas Elston

    (Blavatnik School of Government. University of Oxford. Radcliffe Observatory Quarter. Woodstock Road. Oxford. OX2 6GG. United Kingdom.)

Abstract

Inter-municipal cooperation is often regarded as an alternative to privatizing local public services. But cooperation and privatization can also be combined into a composite reform package, where several municipalities jointly issue contracts relating to multiple jurisdictions. Evaluating these ‘hybrid’ reforms rests on disentangling the separate and combined effects of cooperation and privatization. This we undertake for the case of solid waste collection in the Spanish region of Catalonia, using environmental protection as our focal performance metric. Drawing on two waves of data (for 2000 and 2019) for a sample of 186 municipalities that mix public and private with cooperative and autonomous service delivery, we show that superior performance among reformed municipalities is initially confined to those cooperations involving public production. But latterly, any form of cooperation, using public or private production, resulted in significant gains. This reinforces the need for evaluators to isolate the (changing) ‘active ingredient’ in hybrid reforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Germà Bel & Thomas Elston, 2023. ""Disentangling the separate and combined effects of privatization and cooperation on local government service delivery"," IREA Working Papers 202311, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Oct 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:ira:wpaper:202311
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ub.edu/irea/working_papers/2023/202311.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arntsen, Bjørnulf & Torjesen, Dag Olaf & Karlsen, Tor-Ivar, 2021. "Asymmetry in inter-municipal cooperation in health services – How does it affect service quality and autonomy?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    2. Leibenstein, Harvey, 1978. "On the Basic Proposition of X-Efficiency Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 328-332, May.
    3. Ruth Dixon & Thomas Elston, 2019. "Should councils collaborate? Evaluating shared administration and tax services in English local government," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 26-36, January.
    4. Judith Clifton & Mildred E. Warner & Raymond Gradus & Germà Bel, 2021. "Re-municipalization of public services: trend or hype?," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 293-304, July.
    5. Jonathan Levin & Steven Tadelis, 2010. "Contracting For Government Services: Theory And Evidence From U.S. Cities," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 507-541, September.
    6. Marthe L. Holum & Tor G. Jakobsen, 2016. "Inter-Municipal Cooperation and Satisfaction with Services: Evidence from the Norwegian Citizen Study," International Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(8), pages 597-609, July.
    7. Bart Voorn & Marieke L. Van Genugten & Sandra Van Thiel, 2021. "Re-interpreting re-municipalization: finding equilibrium," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 305-318, July.
    8. Germà Bel & Mildred E. Warner, 2016. "Factors explaining inter-municipal cooperation in service delivery: a meta-regression analysis," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 91-115, April.
    9. Austin M. Aldag & Mildred Warner, 2018. "Cooperation, not cost savings: explaining duration of shared service agreements," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 350-370, May.
    10. Yaniv Reingewertz & Soren Serritzlew, 2019. "Special issue on municipal amalgamations: guest editors’ introduction," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 603-610, September.
    11. John Vickers & George Yarrow, 1991. "Economic Perspectives on Privatization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 111-132, Spring.
    12. Hugo Consciência Silvestre & Rui Cunha Marques & Ricardo Corrêa Gomes, 2018. "Joined-up Government of utilities: a meta-review on a public–public partnership and inter-municipal cooperation in the water and wastewater industries," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 607-631, April.
    13. Le Grand, Julian, 2003. "Motivation, Agency, and Public Policy: Of Knights and Knaves, Pawns and Queens," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199266999, Decembrie.
    14. Germà Bel & Alejandro Belerdas-Castro, 2022. "Provision and production reform of urban fire services: privatization, cooperation and costs," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(9), pages 1331-1354, September.
    15. Thomas Niaounakis & Jos Blank, 2017. "Inter-municipal cooperation, economies of scale and cost efficiency: an application of stochastic frontier analysis to Dutch municipal tax departments," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 533-554, July.
    16. Germà Bel & Mildred E. Warner, 2016. "Factors explaining inter-municipal cooperation in service delivery: a meta-regression analysis," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 91-115, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Germà Bel & Thomas Elston, 2024. "When the time is right: testing for dynamic effects in collaborative performance," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(12), pages 3429-3455, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Mark Davidson & Kevin Ward, 2022. "Post-great recession municipal budgeting and governance: A mixed methods analysis of budget stress and reform," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(4), pages 634-652, June.
    4. Arntsen, Bjørnulf & Torjesen, Dag Olaf & Karlsen, Tor-Ivar, 2021. "Asymmetry in inter-municipal cooperation in health services – How does it affect service quality and autonomy?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    5. Bel, Germà, 2020. "Public versus private water delivery, remunicipalization and water tariffs," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Notsu, Naruki, 2024. "Inter-municipal cooperation cloud and tax administrative costs," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    7. Ivo Bischoff & Eva Wolfschuetz, 2017. "The Emergence of Inter-Municipal Cooperation – A Hazard Model Approach," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201744, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    8. 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.
    9. Germà Bel & Xavier Fageda, 2008. "Privatization and competition in the delivery of local services: An empirical examination of the dual market hypothesis," Working Papers XREAP2008-04, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Apr 2008.
    10. Germà Bel & Xavier Fageda & Melania Mur, 2010. "¿Por qué se privatizan servicios en los municipios (pequeños)? Evidencia empírica sobre residuos sólidos y agua," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 192(1), pages 33-58, March.
    11. Liang-Cheng Zhang & Andrew C. Worthington, 2018. "Explaining Estimated Economies of Scale and Scope in Higher Education: A Meta-Regression Analysis," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 59(2), pages 156-173, March.
    12. Banaszewska, Monika & Bischoff, Ivo & Bode, Eva & Chodakowska, Aneta, 2022. "Does inter-municipal cooperation help improve local economic performance? – Evidence from Poland," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    13. Clémence Tricaud, 2019. "Better alone? Evidence on the costs of intermunicipal cooperation," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2019-12-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    14. Pevcin Primoz, 2018. "The Analysis of the Implementation of municipal Cooperation and Merger Strategies: Case Study for Slovenia," Economics and Culture, Sciendo, vol. 15(1), pages 15-21, June.
    15. Ivo Bischoff & Eva Wolfschütz, 2021. "Inter-municipal cooperation in administrative tasks – the role of population dynamics and elections," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(4), pages 568-592, July.
    16. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Francisco González-Gómez & José C. Hernández-Gutiérrez & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2023. "Remunicipalization of Local Public Services: Policy Drivers and Changing Prices," IREA Working Papers 202319, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Dec 2023.
    17. Calin E. HINTEA & Bogdana NEAMTU & Viorel STANICA, 2019. "Metropolitan Areas In Romania – The Shift From Forced Cooperation To Collaborative Governance. A Case Study," TAD 14 The disciplines and the study of Public Administration: Transatlantic perspectives in the margin of the 14th Administration and Public Management International Conference, Bucharest, June 6-18 3, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania.
    18. Quentin Frère & Lionel Védrine, 2024. "Does decentralisation theorem shape intermunicipal cooperation?," Post-Print hal-04739942, HAL.
    19. João M. Pinto & Mário Coutinho dos Santos & Pedro Verga Matos, 2021. "Contracting Out Public Transit Services: An Incentive Performance-Based Approach," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 02, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    20. Kozera, Agnieszka & Satoła, Łukasz & Standar, Aldona & Dworakowska-Raj, Małgorzata, 2022. "Regional diversity of low-carbon investment support from EU funds in the 2014–2020 financial perspective based on the example of Polish municipalities," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collaboration; Privatization; Inter-municipal cooperation; Shared services local government. JEL classification: L33; H44; H76; H83;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out
    • H44 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Goods: Mixed Markets
    • H76 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Other Expenditure Categories
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ira:wpaper:202311. 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: Alicia García (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feubaes.html .

    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.