Economies of scale: a multi-level perspective: Applications in Dutch local public services

Driven by a quest for efficiency, many Western countries have witnessed merger waves across the entire breadth of their public sectors. The underlying assumption is that economies of scale exist in public service delivery; the idea that the average cost of public services decreases as the size of public organizations increases. The analysis of...

Economies of scale and sustainability in local government: A complex issue

Local governments may seek efficient public service delivery through scaling up production, and the quest for the optimal local government size has attracted extensive attention of scholars and policy makers. Indeed, if scale matters for local government efficiency, increasing size may be a key factor in achieving more value for money for...

Managing size of public schools and school boards: A multi-level cost approach applied to dutch primary education

In many countries, the provision of primary education is among the core responsibilities of local governments. One of the main questions local governments face concerns the optimal configuration of school boards and size of schools. In this paper we analyse the relation between cost and scale in school boards and in schools. The influence of...

Inter-municipal cooperation, economies of scale and cost efficiency: an application of stochastic frontier analysis to Dutch municipal tax departments

Inter-municipal cooperation is increasingly popular in European countries. Saving cost is a key motivation. This paper analyses the relation between inter-municipal cooperation and cost efficiency among Dutch municipal tax departments between 2005 and 2012. Motivated by the notion that cost savings are ascribed to scale economies, the...