Questions About the Initiative of the European Commission Concerning the Awarding and Compulsory Competitive Tendering of Public Service Concessions

The ruling of the European Commission is that the award of contracts by regional or local authorities for the provision of services of general economic interest must be done by way of competitive tendering. Such contracts must not be awarded to the authority's own public enterprises or to any other enterprise, including by means of unilateral State act, without a call for tenders, a practice that had previously been common in many Member States. Public service concessions are also subject to the competition rules of the EC Treaty. Should the European Commission enact a directive concerning compulsory competitive tendering, this would result, for several Member States, in a serious change of paradigm as regards the awarding of public service concessions. Against this background, this article will attempt to find answers to the following questions: —How is the present relationship of the regional or local authority with its own public enterprise to be considered? —Are there any limits to applying the rules on competition of the EC Treaty to public service concessions? —What kind of positive and negative effects concerning economic efficiency and supply of specific public services result from the awarding of public service concessions and from compulsory competitive tendering? —What kind of, and what amount of, transaction costs result from compulsory competitive tendering and from the awarding of concessions? —Does competitive tendering work properly, and are public tenderers given equal opportunities? —Are there any alternatives to compulsory competitive tendering that would achieve an efficient market performance and provide sufficient supply?     

Public Procurement at the Local Level in Austria: The Economic Consequences of Compulsory Competitive Tendering for Public Services

This paper looks at possible problems concerning the economic effects of the introduction of an compulsory competitive tendering for general economic interest services at the local level. It examines the framework in Austria and some fundamental problems of competitive tendering. An obligation binding local authorities to put general economic interest services up for competitive tender, as currently intended by the European Commission (i.e. service concessions), would have considerable medium- and long-term effects on both the process of municipal service provision and the economic position of municipal (public) enterprises. The paper concludes that, from an economic point of view, procurement through competitive tendering does not appear to be effective or tenable for all general economic interest services in (all) different areas. The introduction of compulsory competitive tendering for service concessions in all areas of public services is therefore something best forgotten.     

THE HOUSEHOLD DISTRIBUTION OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES FOR AGRICULTURE AND EDUCATION IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA IN 1974

The paper reports on several results from a comprehensive study of the household incidence of public expenditure in Peninsular Malaysia in 1974. The results for education show a pro-poor distribution of expenditure when measured as a share of household income. Using however the criterion of each according to his needs (that is the number of school-age children per household) reverses this outcome. In agriculture, because of the importance of land settlement, benefits from public expenditure distribute predominantly in favor of the poor.
The research differs from the usual study of this kind in that individual government outputs such as school years, or fertilizer loans, were defined, and in the case of education their unit costs estimated and their distribution across households measured. In the case of education, both the costs of services from capital and the households' out-of-pocket educational costs were added to the current subsidies. As one consequence, it was seen that total expenditure for education in Malaysia exceeds one-eighth of GNP, nearly double the conventional estimate. Equally important, for the poor the burden of private costs for education even within a public system were seen to be very high.
The contrasts between the strong results for education, a broad based social service, and the less conclusive results for agriculture, an economic service which impacts directly on production, were instructive in suggesting the limitations of such research in measuring the effects of government budget activity on distribution.     

Human Fallibility, Complementarity, and Fiscal Decentralization

This paper examines economic growth properties under alternative fiscal organizations when a bureau's decisions are fallible. A country consists of J jurisdictions, which need a public service. In a centralized government, one authority decides on services in every jurisdiction. In a decentralized government, J authorities are in charge of each public service. An authority can have high ability or low ability, and an authority with high ability draws a good project with higher probability. We first show that the decentralized government provides the same average quality of public services, with lower variance, than does the centralized government. We then apply this result to an economic growth model where the value of the Solow residual is a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) function of public services. We show that there is a critical value of the degree of complementarity below which fiscal decentralization is more desirable than fiscal centralization for an expected economic growth, and the decentralized government has a lower variance of GDP growth.     

基于个人利益视角的美国消防服务供给模式分析

公共产品理论认为公共产品与服务应该由政府垄断提供。但是公共选择学派在理论上的创新以及欧美国家私有化改革实践都证明了公共产品私人供给的可能性。19世纪中期美国消防服务供给模式向市政化演进，是私人利益所致，市政化对包括消防员、保险公司和政治家在内的利益集团都有益处。对中国公共产品供给政策的借鉴和启示：引导社会组织参与公共物品的提供；明确划分各级政府事权范围，并以法律形式确定下来；完善政治决策程序，提高政府服务效率。     

农村公共管理服务变化影响农户收入吗?—基于中国健康与养老调查数据的经验分析

在农村市场化进程中农村的公共管理服务发生了深刻变化。基于2011年中国健康与养老调查数据构建计量经济模型,通过控制实验方法解决模型中可能存在的内生性问题,验证了政府经济发展服务、社会管理服务影响农户收入的机制。分析结果表明:以乡镇企业、村办企业数量衡量的政府经济管理服务显著影响农户收入,企业数量越多的村庄农户收入也越高;以村基层组织干部素质衡量的政府社会管理服务也是影响农户收入的重要因素;与经济管理服务相比,政府社会管理服务能力对农户收入的影响力较弱。政府应当通过公共服务购买改革等方式提高农村社会管理服务水平,充分发挥市场在农村经济领域中的决定性作用。     

Tax Expenditures on Health in Australia: 1960–61 to 1988–89

Commonwealth government tax expenditures arise because departures from the tax structure produce favourable tax treatment of particular types of activities or taxpayers. Such tax concessions can be used in the same way as direct expenditures to give effect to government policies, and in fact are often used as substitutes for direct expenditures. Although estimates of tax expenditures on health in more recent times are readily available, this form of subsidisation of the health sector has not been used heavily since the introduction of Medicare in 1984. It is for the period spanning the 1960s and the 1970s, when tax expenditures were a much more important source of health care finance, that consistent estimates are lacking. This article presents estimates of the revenue cost of income tax concessions for health in Australia over the period 1960–61 to 1988–89 and integrates these estimates into the currently available health expenditure statistics. It is concluded that failure to allow for tax expenditures on health when analysing public expenditures on health in Australia can lead to misleading conclusions about the net fiscal impact of changes in the Commonwealth's health expenditure policy. In particular, the fiscal effect of introducing Medihank in 1975 is significantly lower if account is taken of changes to tax concessions on health occurring at the same time. Likewise, the net cost of the introduction of Medicare in 1984 is overstated by measures based on direct outlays alone.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF REPUTATION IN AWARDING PUBLIC CONTRACTS

ABSTRACT * :  The main economic literature emphasizes that the efficiency of the awarding procedure depends on the contractual rules, especially those regarding firm's remuneration. In this work we show the existence of a reverse link: when the enforcement of contractual terms is imperfect, the rules of the awarding mechanism can help to improve the efficiency of the contractual relationship. In some circumstances, awarding rules based only on bids are not able to deal with the problem of opportunistic behaviour during the execution of the contract. Our model points out that the public administration can incentivize the contractor's fairness by considering not only competitors' bids, but also their different reputation.     

需求牵引的综合科技服务流程动态拼接研究

复杂的科技服务需求对单一的专业科技服务提出了巨大挑战，需要研究可行的综合科技服务方案予以应对。通过初始服务流程识别和客户需求到服务流程转化，得到与客户需求相关的服务流程。基于功能相关性评价，对服务流程进行模糊聚类分析，通过计算最大适应度值确定最优科技服务流程拼接方案。贡献在于，提出一种综合科技服务流程动态拼接方法，并以技术转移类综合科技服务为例进行说明。     

The Protection of the Public Interest in the Context of Competitive Tendering

Public contracts increasingly have to be awarded through a procedure of public competitive tendering. State and other public bodies awarding public service contracts use this mechanism to require bidders to meet specific public interests, for example, certain environment standards, the promotion of women, or the employment of long-term unemployed persons. Such requirements impose upon bidders criteria not explicitly related to the contract, the implementation of which increases the project's cost and thus precludes the selection of the most economic offer, contrary to what is required by European recommendations. However the European Court of Justice has accepted such practice by Member States, considering it their right to organize themselves, within certain conditions, which are reviewed in this paper.     

The Reform of Local Public Utilities in Italy

The Italian system of local public utilities has recently undergone an important reform process. The first round of reforms, introduced in the 1990s, represented a remarkable change in the social welfare function with regard to the management of local public utilities. The legislation was specifically designed to cut costs and reduce deficits. A second round of reforms, required by European directives, started around the mid-1990s. Several laws were passed introducing important innovations and regulating specific sectors: public transport; electricity; and gas. Article 35 of the 2002 Financial Law was the final step in a comprehensive reform of the whole local public utility sector. The main innovations of the Financial Law concerns liberalization. Article 35 states that the general rule for awarding service provision contracts is competitive tendering; the rationale is obviously that of competition for the market. The general rule as expressed by Article 35 is nevertheless limited during the transition period. In the long run, competitive tendering will become the normal way of awarding contracts for local public utility provision. Even if there are doubts that full competition will be introduced into the sector, liberalization does appear to be having an effect, forcing many local public utilities to become more efficient. The changes introduced have brought about a better and a more efficient system with a greater number of large size enterprises and on the average a more active management.
In the future, the liberalization process may come to a standstill due to an insufficient number of competitors. Strong public administrations are therefore needed to prevent opportunistic behaviour by private firms.     

我国基本公共服务空间差异格局与质量特征分析

顺利推进基本公共服务均等化是我国和谐社会发展面临的一项重要问题。在探讨基本公共服务内涵的基础上,以教育服务、文化服务、卫生服务、信息化服务、生态环境服务、基础设施服务、社会保障服务7个一级指标,29个二级指标构建了我国市级基本公共服务质量水平测度指标体系,用熵值法对我国286个地级以上城市(除拉萨)进行系统分析。结果表明:城市之间基本公共服务差距明显,基本公共服务质量总体不高,空间差异明显,呈现从东部沿海到中、西部逐步降低的特点;基本公共服务质量较高的城市呈"群"状分布,与城市群有较好的拟合;基本公共服务水平与城市经济发展水平呈正相关,与城市规模存在对应关系;公共服务水平各单项水平不均衡等。     

Public finance solutions to the European unemployment problem?

Unemployment in Europe is heavily concentrated among low-skilled workers. It has therefore been suggested that structural unemployment could be reduced by shifting the tax burden away from low-skilled labour and away from the production of consumer services, which are intensive in the use of such labour. This paper finds that a tax shift away from low-paid labour may raise aggregate employment and welfare, but only if wage formation is sufficiently responsive to changing tax incentives. The analysis also suggests that non-negligible employment and welfare gains could be reaped by offering tax concessions or subsidies to those parts of the consumer service sector which compete most directly with low-productivity home production and with underground economic activity.     

论政府购买公共服务的规范化建设——基于社会学制度主义的分析视角

政府购买公共服务是创新公共服务提供方式、加快公共服务业发展、增加公共服务供给、提高公共服务水平和效率的重要途径。从实践来看,政府购买公共服务的规范化建设具有重要意义。基于社会学制度主义的视角,从制度的规制性要素、规范性要素和文化-认知性要素这三大基础性要素出发,分析政府购买公共服务的制度性因素,针对目前政府购买公共服务过程中存在的相关法律法规欠缺、制度供给不足、操作流程不规范、评价和监督体系不健全等制度性缺陷,提出加强政府购买公共服务的法律体系、操作流程、理念和认知等规范化建设的相应对策建议。     

A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTIVITY IN SELECTED SERVICE INDUSTRIES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1939–1963

This paper examines differentials in output, employment and productivity across seventeen service industries in the United States from 1939 to 1963. Included are 9 retail trades and 8 services mostly from the personal service group. The industries chosen were those for which it was possible to obtain from available data reasonably comparable measures of output and input for selected years since 1939. Also, they are industries for which it is possible to calculate a measure of real output that is not based on labor input.
Sixteen of the industries show positive rates of change of real output per man. Thus there appears to be no basis for assuming that productivity cannot or does not increase in industries providing services. However, the rate of increase for the group as a whole was not as rapid as in manufacturing or in goods production as a whole.
The data for the seventeen industries give strong support to the hypothesis of a positive correlation between industry rates of growth and rates of change of productivity. The correlations are of the same order of magnitude as those found by other investigators in studies of manufacturing industries.
The coefficient of correlation between growth of output per man and growth of output is .93; between growth of output per man and growth of employment it is .54 for 1939–1963. The comparable coefficients for the 1948–1963 period are .70 and .13.
The results also parallel those reported for manufacturing in one other respect, namely, the absence of any correlation between changes in output per man and changes in compensation per man.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the problems encountered in measuring changes in real output in these industries and presents some alternative estimates based on different concepts and different sources.     

供给侧改革下科技社团公共服务供给绩效研究

近年来我国社会组织积极参与公共服务,但各类社会组织参与效果有所不同,同时,社会各界也缺乏对社会组织提供公共服务绩效水平的客观科学衡量方法。为此,选取多层次模糊分析法构建了一套多层次评估体系,用于评估科技社团公共服务供给绩效水平,并对武汉市科技社团进行了实证分析。结合实证模型结果,深入探析了当前武汉市科技社团公共服务供给的绩效水平及现实困境,并有针对性地提出了对策与建议。     

公共服务、城市规模与人才区位——基于新空间经济学理论的分析

将城市规模引入新空间经济学理论模型,探讨公共服务、城市规模对人才区位的影响机制,并且利用2011-2017年CMDS微观数据匹配244个城市数据进行实证检验。结果显示：①城市规模对公共服务影响人才区位具有非线性门槛效应,只有当城市规模满足一定门槛条件时,增加公共服务供给才能显著吸引人才流入;②全国层面的实证分析有效验证了理论预期;③分区域看,东部与中西部地区门槛条件具有异质性,东部地区人才流动呈现竞争效应,中西部地区呈现集聚效应;④分城市等级看,大城市与中小城市门槛条件差异明显,满足门槛条件时,加大中小城市公共服务供给,吸引人才效果会更显著。最后提出基于城市规模和区域异质性的公共服务供给对策。     

基于AHP法的旅游公共服务评价指标体系研究

旅游公共服务评价指标体系是研究旅游公共服务的基础,本文运用层次分析法原理,选取13项指标构建旅游公共服务评价指标体系,并通过构造判断矩阵和一次性检验,确定各级指标的权重。研究结果表明：旅游公共信息类服务和旅游公共安全类服务在旅游公共服务中占据重要地位,旅游要素保障类服务和旅游公益事业系统服务则需要继续加强。     

中国:深化事业单位改革,改善公共服务提供

改善事业单位的绩效,对于提高公共服务的质量,适应中国所确定的建设小康社会的目标,落实“以人为本”的发展观,具有非常关键的意义。虽然过去以“推向市场”为目标的改革取得了很大成就,但同时也在公共服务领域引入了一些不合意的激励机制。为了改善公共服务,中国需要进行全面、协调的事业单位改革,其中包括重新界定政府的角色和从商业性活动中退出,改革公共财政以便更好地为公共服务付费,允许非国有部门提供更多的公共产品,加强公共部门内部的问责机制,建立绩效管理和监督体制。由于事业单位的复杂性和多样化特征,改革的设计与实施必须充分考虑不同部门和不同地区的具体环境以及对员工的影响。因此,有必要在中央层面建立一个跨部门的改革领导小组对事业单位改革进行指导和监督。     

均等化基本公共服务的路径分析

公共服务中的基本公共服务是一个社会中人们生存和发展必需的基本条件,平等享受公共服务是公民的权利,政府应从制度上规范和保证这种权利的实现。目前我国地区间、城乡间基本公共服务提供的非均等化问题日益突出,成为影响社会公平和稳定的重要因素。健全公共财政制度、深化财政管理体制改革、完善均等化转移支付制度以及健全公共服务均等化的激励与约束机制等措施,是逐步实现均等化基本公共服务的主要路径选择。