Transition and efficiency: How efficient are Polish local communes in terms of the delivery of local public services?
Transition and efficiency: How efficient are Polish local communes in terms of the delivery of local public services?

Summary/Abstract: In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the level of interest in measuring the (in)efficiency of local government (communes). This topic is particularly important due to the growing social needs and limited financial resources of local governments. With the above in mind, this article focuses on the measurement of the technical (in)efficiency of municipalities in Poland. Due to the fact that studies on local government expenditure in terms of the entire population of communes are rarely undertaken, the population of Polish communes (2478 units) was included in the study. The research used a method based on stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). The authors state that urban communes are characterised by greater (in)efficiency than rural communes. The scale of a possible reduction in expenditure without lowering the effects of public task implementation is on average 20.01%, while for rural communes it is 15.94%. Public spending across the categories of communes is also differentiated by the age structure of the population and the homogeneity of political views at the central and local levels. The results obtained indicate that there is space not only for a revision of the current expenditure policy, but also for the development of proposed changes aimed at enhancing the efficiency of public spending.

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