Public versus Private in Municipal Services Management
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4335/13.3.995-1018(2015)Keywords:
municipal public services, outsourcing, public managementAbstract
Recent years have seen Spain and many other developed countries move more and more into outsourcing public service management on the grounds that production costs are higher in the public sector than in the private. However, there is often no empirical support that this is always the case. This paper shows that the private sector is not always more economical or better managed than the public one and, to the best of our knowledge, such a study had never been made in Spain. It draws on a survey by the Spanish Court of Auditors for a sample of municipalities, which analyzes public services like drinking water supply, street lighting, street cleaning and urban solid waste collection. Only in the case of lighting is private management cheaper and more efficient, although in larger municipal populations the opposite is true.
References
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Szymanski, S. & Wilkins, S. (1993) Cheap Rubbish? Competitive Tendering and Contracting Out in Refuse Collection-1981-88, Fiscal Studies, 14(3), pp. 109-130.
Valdivieso del Real, R. (2001) La reforma del sector público. Las privatizaciones: el estado de la cuestión y su aplicación al caso español, In: Lima, B. (ed) La nueva gestión pública (Olías de Madrid: Ed. Prentice - Hall), pp. 48-84.
Walsh, K. & Davis, H. (1993) Competition and Service: the Impact of the Local Government Act 1988 (London: HMSO).
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</span></p>
Bel, G. & Miralles, A. (2001) Factores determinantes de la privatización de la recogida de residuos sólidos urbanos, Comunicación presentada a la XXVII Reunión de Estudios Regionales. Madrid: noviembre de 2001.
Bel, G., Fageda, X., & Warner, M. E. (2010) Is private production of public services cheaper than public production? A meta‐regression analysis of solid waste and water services, Journal of Policy Analysis & Management, 29(3), pp. 553-577.
Boyne, G. A. (1998) The determinants of variations in local service contracting. Garbage in, garbage out, Urban Affairs Review, 34(1), pp. 150-163.
Brown, T. L. & Potoski, M. (2005) Transaction costs and contracting: The practitioner perspective, Public Performance & Management Review, 28(3), pp. 326-351.
Christoffersen, H. & Paldam, M. (1998) Markets and municipalities. A study of the behaviour of the Danish municipalities, Working Paper nº 1998-3, (Dinamarca: Universidad de Aarhus).
Cubbin, J.; Domberger, S. & Meadcrowft, S. (1987) Competitive tendering and refuse collection: identifying the sources of efficiency gains, Fiscal Studies, 8(3), pp. 49-58.
De Mesa, L. (2002) La contratación de servicios públicos locales: posibilidades y realidad, Análisis Local, 43(4), pp. 5-21.
Dnes, A. W. (1995) Franchising and Privatization (Washington, DC: The World Bank).
Domberger, S. & Jensen, P. (1997) Contracting out by the public sector: theory, evidence, prospects, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 13(4), pp. 67-78.
Domberger, S. & Rimmer, S. (1994) Competitive Tendering and Contracting in the Public Sector: a Survey, International Journal of the Economics of Business, 1(3), pp. 439-453, doi: 10.1080/758536232.
Donahue, J. D. (1991) La decisión de privatizar. Fines públicos y medios privados (Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós Ibérica).
Ferlie, E.; Ashburner, L.; Fitzgerald, L. & Pettigrew, A. (1996) The New Public Management in action (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Ferris, J. M. & Graddy, E. (1991) Production Costs, Transportation Costs and Local Government Contractor Choice, Economic Inquiry, 24(3), pp. 541-554.
Guthrie, J.; Olson, O. & Humprhey, C. (1999) Debating developments in New Public Financial Management: the limits of global theorising and some new ways forward, Financial Accountability & Management, 15(3), pp. 209-228.
Hall, D. & Lobina, E. (2012) Water companies and trends in Europe (Brussels: European Federation of Public Service Unions).
Hodge, G. A. (1998) Contracting Public Sector Services: A Meta-Analytic Perspective of the International Evidence, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 57(4), pp. 98-110.
Hood, C. (1995) Emerging Issues in Public Administration, Public Administration, 73(1), pp. 165-183, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.1995.tb00822.x.
Johnstone, D. (2002) Public Sector Outsourcing as an exchange option, Abacus, 38(2), pp. 153-176.
Kodrzycki, Y. K. (1998) Fiscal pressures and the privatization of local services, New England Economic Review, January-Ferruary, pp. 39-50.
Lapsley, I. (1999) Accounting and the New Public Management: instruments of substantive efficiency or a rationalising modernity?, Financial Accountability & Management, 15(3), pp. 201-207.
Lopez de Silanes, F.; Shleifer, A. & Vishny, R. (1997) Privatization in the United Status, Rand Journal of Economics, 28(3), pp. 447-471.
Mcguire, R. A., Ohsfeldt; R. T. & Van Cott, T. N. (1987) The determinants of the choice between public and private production of a publicly funded service, Public Choice, 54(3), pp. 211-230.
Montesinos, V., Benito, B., Fuertes, I., Pelejero, Mª. L. & Zorio, A. (2001) Análisis contable de las infraestructuras públicas y su financiación privada (Madrid: Consultores de las Administraciones Públicas e Instituto de Estudios Fiscales).
Nelson, M. A. (1997) Municipal government approaches to service delivery: an analysis from a transactions cost perspective, Economic Inquiry, 35(1), pp. 82-96.
OECD (1995) Governance in transition: public management reforms in OECD countries (Paris: OECD).
OECD (1997) Contracting Out Government Services: Best Practice Guidelines and Case Studies, Occasional Papers nº 20 (París: OECD).
Picazo-Tadeo, A. J., González-Gómez, F., Wanden-Berghe, J. G., & Ruiz-Villaverde, A. (2012) Do ideological and political motives really matter in the public choice of local services management? Evidence from urban water services in Spain, Public Choice, 151(1-2), pp. 215-228.
Reimer, S. (1999) Contract service firms in local authorities: evolving geographies of activity, Regional Studies, 33(2), pp. 121-130.
Rosen, H. (2002) Hacienda Pública, 5ª edición (Madrid: McGraw-Hill).
Szymanski, S. & Wilkins, S. (1993) Cheap Rubbish? Competitive Tendering and Contracting Out in Refuse Collection-1981-88, Fiscal Studies, 14(3), pp. 109-130.
Valdivieso del Real, R. (2001) La reforma del sector público. Las privatizaciones: el estado de la cuestión y su aplicación al caso español, In: Lima, B. (ed) La nueva gestión pública (Olías de Madrid: Ed. Prentice - Hall), pp. 48-84.
Walsh, K. & Davis, H. (1993) Competition and Service: the Impact of the Local Government Act 1988 (London: HMSO).
Warner, M. & Hebdon, R. (2001) Local government restructuring: privatization and its alternatives, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 20(2), pp. 315-336.
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Published
2015-09-03
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