SCALE ECONOMIES AND POLICE DEPARTMENT CONSOLIDATION: EVIDENCE FROM LOS ANGELES

This paper tests for scale economies for police departments operating in Los Angeles County. Intergovernmental sharing in providing police services prevails within the county, suggesting that scale economies exist in producing this public good. Empirical analysis here rejects the hypothesis that police output is produced under increasing returns, which would be an efficiency explanation for the large degree of consolidation found within the county.     

Organization, Management and Delegation in the French Water Industry

The water industry is largely a natural monopoly. Water distribution and sewerage services are characterized by networks and its natural monopoly derives from the established local networks of drinking water and sewers: they are capital intensive with sunk costs and increasing returns to scale. In France, local communities have a local requirement of providing public services under optimum conditions in terms of techniques and cost-effectiveness, and subject to respect different kind of standards in terms of water quality and level of services. They are responsible for producing and distributing drinking water, and collecting and treating wastewater. Furthermore, the French water utilities are required to be financially self-sufficient. Rate-setting varies across regions and local territories due to a variety of organizational features of services and availability of water resources. The management of these local public services can be public or private: local governments have the right, by the constitution, to delegate water service management to private companies which operate under the oversight of local municipal authorities. Today, nearly 80 per cent of the French population receive private distributed water. Different reasons are responsible for the poor performance and low productivity of most French public water utilities: technical and operational, commercial and financial, human and institutional, and environmental. Thus, many water public utilities have looked for alternative ways to provide water and sanitation services more efficiently, to improve both operational and investment efficiency, and to attract private finance. The purpose of this paper is to present the French organizational system of providing drinking water services, and collecting and treating wastewater services: legal aspects, contracts of delegation, and competition.     

THE POSTAL SERVICE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION PUBLIC MONOPOLY OR COMPETITIVE MARKET?: A transaction cost approach

The paper discusses the relevant institutional and economic aspects of the postal service, and analyses both the arguments for abolishing the statutory monopoly and those for retaining it. The main thesis of the paper is that public and private postal services differ from each other in many aspects: transaction costs, the willingness of the customer to pay, market structure, and possibilities of substituting the service with other communication instruments. Therefore, a simple privatisation will not solve per se the efficiency problems of the service. furthermore, the European Commission, which published in 1992 a green paper on postal services, is considering the possibility of harmonising the quality of the service within the EU and gradually reducing the gap in national postal prices. This seems to be an effective device to force firms towards the greater efficiency required in a Continental market. In future, the competition will take place not so much between private firms (more interested in running the high-value segments), as between national public carriers, as shown by the phenomenon of remail.     

我国矿业中介组织服务体系的构成与存在问题研究

矿业中介组织不仅在矿产资源的勘查、开发、交易、并购、融资等活动中发挥着重要作用,而且对促进政府职能转变、推进事业单位改革和提高市场配置资源效率也起着关键的作用。我国是矿业生产和消费大国,但矿业中介组织服务体系还存在管理混乱、运行不规范、诚信度不高等现象,文章通过剖析整条矿业产业链中各阶段中介组织所应发挥的作用和存在问题,对存在问题的内部和外部原因进行了剖析,并针对我国矿业中介服务体系的构建和发展提出了建议。     

公共产品的私人供应与气象服务的商业化

气象服务是一种典型的由政府无偿提供的社会公益性公共产品 ,由于其垄断经营的固有缺陷 ,造成气象服务供给的高成本和低效率。随着人类社会的不断发展 ,许多发达市场经济国家或地区已经尝试与推广气象服务商业化 ,并取得了显著的效果。本文从公共产品供应理论出发 ,在介绍国外气象服务商业化运行机制和经验的基础上 ,分析与提出了我国气象服务商业化的可能性、必要性及其相关政策建议等     

THE MEASUREMENT OF POLICE FORCE EFFICIENCY: AN ASSESSMENT OF U.K. HOME OFFICE POLICY

Over the past 20 years, governments around the world have implemented strategies and targets to ensure that public services are efficient in the management of resources. In the United Kingdom this common agenda has led to the recent Police Reform Act 2002 in which consideration was given to how police forces can show value for money based on government strategic policy targets. This article presents a critique of the performance radar technique proposed by the Home Office in the United Kingdom as a new public policy objective to assess police force performance. Using an alternative and innovative nonparametric modeling strategy, the article shows that the use of the former approach can produce biased performance rankings and also demonstrate that environmental factors can have a substantial impact on the apparent efficiency of individual police forces. Finally, the results suggest that survey data (as used by the Home Office) should not be used as a basis to assess police performance. (JEL C14, L3, M2)     

SERVICE QUALITY IN ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION IN BRAZIL: A MALMQUIST APPROACH

The paper undertakes a dynamic analysis for service quality in the electricity distribution in Brazil between 2010 and 2014 based on Malmquist indexes constructed upon Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) distance functions. The motivation for the less usual consideration of efficiency frontiers for service quality, that does not rely on traditional inputs and outputs but rather on quality indicators, builds on previous static applications in the context of telecommunications. The analysis considers undesirable technical indicators for quality as inputs and desirable consumer satisfaction indicators for quality as outputs in the efficiency frontier analysis. The bootstrap‐corrected Malmquist indexes indicated service quality deterioration in 38.1 per cent, quality stagnation in 40.5 per cent and quality improvement only in 21.4 per cent of the cases. When one decomposes the Malmquist index, the evidence does not suggest relevant frontier shifts and indicates a dominant role for the catch‐up effect. Finally, Malmquist indexes are regressed against variables that may portray heterogeneities, such as firm size, service area, density, ownership and regional dummies in terms of a well‐known two‐stage procedure. The mostly weak significance results reinforce the plausibility of the initial analysis.     

服务经济的微观分析-基于生产与交易的分工均衡

与目前有关服务经济的研究不同,本文用一个新兴古典的佣金中间商1模型来分析交易服务的经济性质.主要结果表明:在市场分工中,交易服务是一种能够对产品的交易产生正网络效应的特殊商品;由中间商数量所决定的服务网络规模会影响市场一体化程度;制度效率和服务交易效率的改进将提高人均真实收入,当制度效率比服务交易效率的改进程度更大,或当服务业的劳动生产率提高,从生产部门向交易部门的劳动力迁移将增加;而改进的制度效率也将扩大产品和服务的市场容量;因而,经济增长呈现为以服务业发展为导向的增长.本文对于服务业缘何已成为发达国家的主导产业给出了一个微观解释,也为中国通过服务业来推动经济增长提供了一个理论视角.     

Performance Indicators and Efficiency Measurement in Public Libraries

A sample of one hundred and sixty-eight New South Wales local government libraries is used to analyse the efficiency measures derived from the non-parametric technique of data envelopment analysis. Depending upon the assumptions employed, 9.5 per cent of local governments were judged to be overall technically efficient in the provision of library services, 47.6 per cent as pure technically efficient, and 10.1 per cent as scale efficient. The study also analyses the posited linkages between comparative performance indicators, productive performance and non-discretionary environmental factors under these different model formulations. The results indicate that the presence of exogenous factors and scale effects account for a major portion of the differences in observed efficiency between different groups of local governments.     

X-Efficiency and Productivity Change in Australian Banking

This paper investigates X -efficiency and productivity change in Australian banking between 1995 and 1999 using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity indexes. It differs from earlier studies by examining efficiency by bank type, and finds that regional banks are less efficient than other bank types. The study concludes that diseconomies of scale set in very early and hence are not a sufficient basis on which to allow mergers between large banks to proceed. Total factor productivity in the banking sector was found to have increased by an average annual 7.6 per cent between 1995 and 1999. All of the productivity increase was due to technological advance shifting out the frontier. The banking sector's performance was less efficient relative to the frontier in 1999 than it had been in 1995.     

CONSTITUENCY PREFERENCE AND POLICE CONSOLIDATION: THE CASE OF WEST HOLLYWOOD

This study estimates the determinants of voter behavior in a local referendum on contracting for municipal police services. Recent empirical research has found that police services are produced under decreasing returns to scale. The electorate in West Hollywood, California decided in 1992 to maintain its police contractual agreement with the larger county police department. This paper finds that economic costs/benefits were significant determinants of the voters' decisions, suggesting that the electorate's expectations on the relative costs of the alternative police regimes contradict the efficiency implications of recent empirical research. ( JEL H31, H77)     

Opening up Public Services to Competition by Putting Them Out to Tender: An Evaluation

This article examines the effects of systematizing tendering procedures when awarding public service concessions. The opening up of the water supply industry to competition is used by way of illustration. Results show that arguments in favour of systematization are not robust when focusing solely on the expected benefits of the liberalization process. The peculiarities of the contract relationship in the delegation of public services, the mobilization of specific assets, and the long duration and incompleteness of the contracts invalidate this type of argument and expose public authorities to the opportunism of operators.
The efficiency of awarding public services concessions relies on cost–benefit analysis, taking into account sectoral aspects as well as specificities of the contracting organizations and structures.
The public service culture of these organizations is in this respect a key factor in the choice of efficient organizations since it conditions their ability to internalize the mission of fulfilling the public interest.     

Price Discrimination in Public Healthcare

Could a public healthcare system use price discrimination—paying medical service providers different fees, depending on the service provider's quality—lead to improvements in social welfare? We show that differentiating medical fees by quality increases social welfare relative to uniform pricing (i.e. quality‐invariant fee schedules) whenever hospitals and doctors have private information about their own ability. We also show that by moving from uniform to differentiated medical fees, the public healthcare system can effectively incentivise good doctors and hospitals (i.e. low‐cost‐types) to provide even higher levels of quality than they would under complete information. In the socially optimal quality‐differentiated medical fee system, low‐cost‐type medical‐service providers enjoy a rent due to their informational advantage. Informational rent is socially beneficial because it gives service providers a strong incentive to invest in the extra training required to deliver high‐quality services at low cost, providing yet another efficiency gain from quality‐differentiated medical fees.     

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。     

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。     

Technical Efficiency in Australian Textile and Clothing Firms: Evidence From the Business Longitudinal Survey

This paper estimates technical efficiency of Australian textile and clothing firms based on the data obtained from the Business Longitudinal Survey (BLS) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Using a Cobb Douglas stochastic production frontier the paper examines firm level technical efficiency in the time varying inefficiency effect model with technical inefficiency effects assumed as an independently distributed truncated normal variable. Estimates of the production frontier revealed significant but small elasticities of labour and capital for textile and clothing firms, respectively, and a negative (but insignificant) Hicks neutral technical change for both. Estimated coefficients of the explanatory variables for inefficiency effects indicated that technical efficiency varied significantly according to firms' age, size, capital intensity, proportion of non-production to total workers and type of legal status. Predicted firm specific efficiency varied from 16 per cent to 95 per cent and mean efficiency ranged between 30 to 70 per cent. In view of these results policies have been suggested to improve technical efficiency of the firms as well as productivity growth of the sub sectors.     

Triangular Relations in Public Service Economics

This paper critically re-examines the restructuring of public services. Four main decision-making phases are identified: the public oversight to be guaranteed to socially sensitive economic activities; the ways of financing them; the economic organisation of the industry; and the production decisions. By focusing on organisation, the paper reinterprets the market structure in public service industries on the basis of the interactions among three main players: users/citizens, the government and the service supplier. It argues that the issue of public versus private ownership has been overemphasised, and that an effective increase in efficiency can be obtained by introducing appropriate incentives for both public and business players. Instead of using a single policy instrument, namely privatisation, public action ought to be informed by an array of organisational solutions.     

我国地方政府公共服务支出评价——基于DEA的省际数据比较

对地方政府公共服务的财政支出进行效率评价,可以发现相对地方政府公共服务投入规模可能达到的效率改进目标.DEA评价方法能满足政府部门追求目标的多样性和弹性,政府部门可以通过DEA有效性评价进行横向比较和分析,调整公共服务财政支出的规模和方向.用逻辑分析法初选出评价公共服务支出的指标体系,并对整体评价指标体系进行冗余度和辨识度检测后,采用DEA方法和LINDO软件对我国31个省公共服务支出的效率进行了相对有效性评价.研究表明,其中有17个省的公共服务支出是相对有效的,北京和贵州为弱DEA有效,其余省份为非DEA有效.通过计算投入冗余额、产出不足额并利用投影法计算出这些省份达到DEA有效的投入产出调整值,提出了弱DEA有效和非DEA有效省份效率改进的对策.     

村民自治、农村税费改革与农村公共投资

促进社会主义新农村建设的核心内容中包括农村民主建设和改善农村公共服务。本文通过对具有全国代表性调查数据的分析，通过研究村主任直接选举和农村税费改革对公共投资的影响后发现，村主任直接选举可以有效促进对农村公共投资的增加，但农村税费改革则在减轻了农民负担的同时对农村公共投资产生短期负面影响。研究建议上级政府应该进一步加大对农村的公共投资力度，同时进一步加强和完善农村村民自治和民主管理。     

How corruption hits people when they are down

Using Peruvian data, I show that victims of misfortune, particularly crime victims, are much more likely than non-victims to bribe public officials. Misfortune increases victims' demand for public services, raising bribery indirectly, and also increases victims' propensity to bribe certain officials conditional on using them, possibly because victims are desperate, vulnerable, or demanding services particularly prone to corruption. The effect is strongest for bribery of the police, where the increase in bribery comes principally through increased use of the police. For the judiciary the effect is also strong, and for some misfortunes is composed equally of an increase in use and an increase in bribery conditional on use. The expense and disutility of bribing thus compound the misery brought by misfortune.