The purpose of this exploratory research is to show how incentive policies have helped to shape the scenario of inter-municipal partnerships in the Italian region of Lombardy. Do these policies really work? Have they been the driver of greater collaboration among municipalities? Overall, the...

Traditionally, in the city of Milan, energy services were supplied by the AEM, the in-house energy enterprise that was established in 1910. While being part of Milan' city administration, the AEM was an example of efficient management and dynamic entrepreneurship in the public sector. Since the...

The past decades have seen the OECD countries attempt a number of sourcing practices in local governments, including corporatization, collaborative arrangements and partnerships. One such option is to share services, an emerging strategy that casts a new actor in a leading role, i.e., the shared...