What Determines Efficiency in Local Government? A DEA Analysis of NSW Local Government

Joseph Drew, Michael Kortt and Brian Dollery ()

Economic Papers, 2015, vol. 34, issue 4, 243-256

Abstract: type="main" xml:id="ecpa12118-abs-0001">

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has the potential to make strong contributions to the formulation of public policy. In particular, DEA can be used to identify the determinants of efficiency and this information can be used to inform debate around municipal boundary reform and other matters. However, there is a dearth of empirical literature on the accurate and correct specification of DEA. We use conceptual considerations to posit an ideal specification for Australian municipal DEA before estimating a number of models to demonstrate the effect of specification on the identification of determinants. Our evidence suggests that incorrect specification may well produce spurious associations and lead to poor public policymaking.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecpa.2015.34.issue-4 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:econpa:v:34:y:2015:i:4:p:243-256

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0812-0439

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Papers is currently edited by Professor Guay Lim

More articles in Economic Papers from The Economic Society of Australia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().