Some politicians argue for the splitting and combining of states to increase government productivity, but there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the optimal size of a state. Using data from Indian states, I test a model of the optimal size of the state. I find that size and preference...

Some politicians argue for the splitting and combining of states to increase government productivity, but there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the optimal size of a state. Using data from Indian states, I test a model of the optimal size of the state. I find that size and preference...

This paper investigates the causal effect of public administration efficiency on firm-level productivity. To this purpose, we combine newly available data from Italy on public administration efficiency of subnational governments with geo-localised firm-level data for the years 2004-2014. Italy...

Purpose This study explores the effect of local budget retention rate changes (RER) on total factor productivity (TFP) and its components in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach The study employs a two-system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator and data from 2012 to 2019 across all 63...

In this paper, we compare the efficiency of the Italian and German university system in the process of translating public funding into the multiple outputs of a university, i.e. graduating students, publishing research, and patenting activity. We do this with a particular focus on the policies...

This research examines regional government performance in Indonesia's provinces after the implementation of fiscal decentralization in 2001 using a two-stage approach. First, extensive input and output data are utilized to measure government productivity and efficiency indices using a Malmquist...

This chapter conducts a review of the literature dealing with overall public sector performance and efficiency, it defines a methodology to assess public sector efficiency and it creates a novel and large cross-sectional panel dataset of government indicators and public sector efficiency scores....

China's economy grew by an impressive 10 percent per year over four decades. Productivity improvements within sectors and gains from resource reallocation between sectors and ownership groups drove that expansion. However, productivity growth has declined markedly in recent years. This paper...

The paper examines the role of the vertical structure of the public sector for economic growth in Germany in a long-term perspective. A theoretical model shows that, due to spillover effects of public service provision across lower level governments, federal government activities could have...

This article provides the first examination of the relationship between public expenditures and labor productivity that focuses on municipalities, rather than states or nations. We use data for 1880-1920, a period of rapid industrialization in which there were both high levels of public...