Influence of selected aspects of local governance on the efficiency of waste collection and street cleaning services.

Currently, in all developed countries there is great interest in improving democratic practices in local governments, as the administration closest to citizens. However, the possible influence of these actions on the management of public services and municipal finances have been side-lined, despite the great interest in evaluating the performance of local governments under budgetary constraints. Our research aims to fill this knowledge gap by studying the impact of key aspects of local governance (transparency and citizen participation), together with other environmental variables, on the efficiency of two municipal public services of both qualitative and quantitative importance: waste collection and street cleaning. The results show that the type of management, population density, the tourist activity of the municipality and the strength of local government are determinants that explain the efficiency of the public services examined in this research, while transparency and citizen participation have little impact.

Measurement and determinants of efficiency in the municipal police service.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of the police service in Spanish municipalities with a population of more than 50,000 inhabitants. Using Data Envelopment Analysis, we obtain the efficiency levels and the targets that the input and outputs have to reach to be efficient in the provision of the police service. Next, and based on the literature, the effect of the following environmental variables is verified: young population, number of foreigners, unemployment, municipal per capita income, tourist level of the municipality, and ideology and political strength of the municipal government. Findings show that an increase in the number of young people in the municipality means an improved efficiency in the local police service. In contrast, cultural diversity (measured by the percentage of foreigners in the total population), unemployment, the mayor's ideology and political fragmentation of government do not have a significant effect on the level of efficiency. On the other hand, higher municipal per capita income means less efficiency, while an increase in tourism activity is related to the improvement of this.