Public services performance: An extended framework and empirical assessment across the enlarged EU

  1. Gisela Di Meglio
  2. Metka Stare
  3. Andrés Maroto Sánchez
  4. Luis Rubalcaba Bermejo
Revista:
Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy

ISSN: 1472-3425

Ano de publicación: 2015

Volume: 33

Número: 2

Páxinas: 321-341

Tipo: Artigo

DOI: 10.1068/C12264R DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Outras publicacións en: Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy

Resumo

Performance of the public sector is at the core of long-term wealth creation and welfare improvement. Yet, its measurement remains inadequate and flawed with data deficiency. In this paper we propose an extended framework for the assessment of public services performance that accounts for long-term impacts on welfare and empirically evaluate it across twenty-five European countries on the basis of a wide set of proxy indicators. We relate the performance scores to input costs indices and propose a coherent typology of countries that corresponds to the patterns of economic effectiveness of public services. The empirical analysis reveals that, because of differences in input costs across the enlarged EU, the economic effectiveness of public services varies to a much larger extent than the performance, with some relatively large-sized governments (Sweden, Denmark, Austria) being the most effective ones.