Property rights and transaction costs – The role of ownership and organization in German public service provision

Maria Friese, Ulrich Heimeshoff and Gordon Klein

International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2020, vol. 72, issue C

Abstract: This paper provides evidence that ownership and organization matters for the efficiency of the provision of public services. The results confirm trade-offs implied by the property rights literature and provide important policy implications regarding the organization of public service provision. We find that pure private ownership is more efficient than pure public ownership, and public ownership is more efficient than mixed ownership. The delegation of management in different legal forms also has an impact, highlighting the importance of the design of the government-operator relationship. We apply a structural approach of a production function estimation, ensuring precise determination of total factor productivity for a panel of German garbage collection firms between 2000 and 2012, followed by a projection of those total factor productivity estimates on ownership and organization.

Keywords: Productive efficiency; Refuse collection; Public service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D2 H1 L3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:indorg:v:72:y:2020:i:c:s0167718720300606

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2020.102637

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