Intermunicipal cooperation and privatization of solid waste services among small municipalities in Spain

Germà Bel and Melania Mur ()
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Melania Mur: Universidad de Zaragoza

No 200816, IREA Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of intermunicipal cooperation and privatization on the delivery costs of urban solid waste services. The results of our empirical analysis, which we conducted among a sample of very small municipalities, indicate that small towns that cooperate incur lower costs for their waste collection service. Cooperation also raises collection frequency and improves the quality of the service in small towns. By contrast, the form of production, whether it is public or private, does not result in systematic differences in costs. Interestingly, the degree of population dispersion has a significant positive relation with service costs.No evidence of scale economies is found because, it would seem, small municipalities exploit them by means of intermunicipal cooperation.

Keywords: local government; intermunicipal cooperation; privatization; contracting-out; solid waste collection. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2008-12, Revised 2008-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-pbe and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ira:wpaper:200816

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