Francisco Bastida

Explaining differences in efficiency: an application to Spanish municipalities

This article, investigates efficiency in the municipal sector of the Region of Murcia (Spain). With that aim, data of 31 municipalities (69% of the response rate) have been collected. Services analysed are: police, culture, sports, green areas, refuse collection and water supply. Ratios of efficiency have been related to other control variables, such as economic level, size of the municipality, decentralization, political sign and financial situation. A weak positive relation between economic level and efficiency arises. Some weak evidence also exists that public management of refuse collection is more efficient than private. In water supply, public management by means of a company controlled by the local government is clearly more efficient than private. It also seems that the higher the tax burden, the greater the efficiency in providing services.

The determinants of the municipal debt policy in Spain

This paper analyzes the impact of economic, social and political factors on municipal debt behavior. With this aim, we have obtained a stratified random sample of 130 cities during a five-year period. These data have been used to configure a micro panel to obtain accurate estimates and to control for problems such as unobserved heterogeneity. The main conclusion obtained from this process is that non-financial surplus/deficit, financial independence, capital expenditures, and capital revenues are the variables that best explain the indebtedness of this type of entities.

Financial reports and decentralization in municipal governments

Some reforms implemented in the Spanish municipal sector have led to an increasing managerial decentralization. This decentralization has made municipal financial statements lose relevance, since devolved entities are not disclosed in these statements. Accordingly, we have made an empirical analysis of 54 big Spanish municipalities in order to evaluate the impact of decentralization on the municipal financial statements. The survey shows a great concern among practitioners about the importance of global reports. Furthermore, devolved entities should be included in the global reports if the municipality has the authority to approve their budget. This feature shows a legal/budgetary bias of municipal officials, who focus on legal and budgetary constraints more than on managerial indicators. We think this bureaucratic approach should evolve to another one with a higher degree of private sector management techniques.

Municipal Spending in Spain: Spatial Approach

AbstractThis paper provides, for the first time, an insight into the influence of urban, political, demographic, and economic factors on several categories of municipal spending, after controlling for the spatial effects. The models of spatial two-step least squares (S2SLS), spatial lag, and spatial error are applied to a sample of 3,204 Spanish municipalities for the year 2005. The results show that the spending of a municipality is influenced by its neighboring municipalities’ spending. Concerning geographical factors, population density has a negative impact on municipal expenditures per capita. The negative impact of population density on per capita total expenditures has policy relevance because it indicates that planning decisions aiming at increase population density will reduce per capita government expenditures, both in small and larger cities. Political ideology does not influence spending. Nevertheless, strong political governments do spend more. Therefore, it is not that the incumbents belong ...