Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine whether transparency influences efficiency of public services delivery and, therefore, the economic performance of municipal governments. First, and taking into account previous research, we select the appropriate inputs and outputs to calculate efficiency using several nonparametric methodologies such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), DEA-boostraping, Free Disposal Hull (FDH), order-m and order-α partial frontiers. Second, the results are related to different variables, with transparency playing a prominent role. In general, transparency influences efficiency, although this sometimes depends on the specific indicator used to measure the latter and on the methodology utilized to calculate it. In particular, our results show that the greater the economic and financial transparency and the more information there is on public service contracts and on urban planning and public works, the more efficient the municipality is, i.e. the more optimally the scarce resources of public administrations are managed. This is relevant for policy makers, as they have to implement policies that make administrations more transparent, which will facilitate the supervision of both users of services and upper governmental authorities (regional/central).

摘要

本文的目的是确定透明度是否影响公共服务提供的效率，从而影响市政府的经济绩效。首先，考虑到之前的研究，我们选择适当的输入和输出来使用几种非参数方法计算效率，例如数据包络分析 (DEA)、DEA-boostraping、自由处置船体 (FDH)、order-m 和 order-α部分边界。其次，结果与不同的变量有关，透明度起着突出的作用。一般而言，透明度会影响效率，尽管这有时取决于用于衡量后者的具体指标以及用于计算效率的方法。尤其，我们的结果表明，经济和金融透明度越高，公共服务合同、城市规划和公共工程方面的信息越多，市政当局的效率就越高，即公共行政部门稀缺资源的管理就越优化。这与政策制定者相关，因为他们必须实施使行政管理更加透明的政策，这将促进对服务用户和上级政府当局（地区/中央）的监督。