Municipality Size and Local Public Services: Do Economies of Scale Exist ?

• Authors: Jana Soukopová , Juraj Nemec , Lenka Matějová , Michal Struk
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Economies of scale are a standard topic in economic theory, frequently applied, for example, in the analysis of monopolies. They exist when a firm optimising its production costs while facing some fixed costs enjoys lower per-unit production costs as the production increases. Similarly to other production units municipalities have to be large enough to minimise average costs. We analysed the local public services in 205 municipalities with extended powers in the Czech Republic for the first time in this context, using regression analysis, a correlation diagram of local public services and statistical analysis. The paper examines this issue using data from 2008 to 2012. Our analysis showed that economies of scale cannot be clearly identified for local services in municipalities with extended powers in the Czech Republic and that the size of a municipality is not a key factor influencing the provision of local services.

Keywords

EN

economies of scale; municipality; public services

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 151-171

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2015-03-04

Contributors

author

Jana Soukopová

author

Juraj Nemec

author

Lenka Matějová

author

Michal Struk

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/nispa-2014-0007