Quality of Life in Major Italian Cities: Do Local Governments Cost Efficiency Contribute to Improve Urban Life Style? An Introductory Analysis

Simona Bigerna () and Paolo Polinori

ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, 2013, vol. 2013/3, issue 3, 121-144

Abstract: In this paper we set forth a novel analysis of urban quality of life (QoL) using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. We use a newly constructed municipality database, which includes all 103 provincial capitals. In our approach we follow a two-stage method. In the first stage, we estimate efficiency scores through a nonparametric DEA with desirable and undesirable outputs. Estimated rankings are compared to Legambiente index. In the second stage, we regress efficiency scores on economic, social and political variables. Our main objective is to estimate non discretionary variables effects on efficiency. According to Simar and Wilson (2007) results show that local government efficiency is highly heterogeneous and that there exists high correlation among our rankings and Legambiente index. Considering exogenous effects, geographical conditions and political aspects constitute the main determinants of municipalities? efficiency.

JEL-codes: C24 C61 R38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista. ... 288&Tipo=ArticoloPDF (text/html)
Single articles can be downloaded buying download credits, for info: https://www.francoangeli.it/DownloadCredit

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:fan:efeefe:v:html10.3280/efe2013-003005

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.francoang ... io.aspx?IDRivista=10

Access Statistics for this article

ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT is currently edited by FrancoAngeli

More articles in ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT from FrancoAngeli Editore
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Stefania Rosato ().