Since the original Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) study by Charnes et al. [Measuring the efficiency of decision-making units. European Journal of Operational Research 1978;2(6):429–44], there has been rapid and continuous growth in the field. As a result, a considerable amount of published research has appeared, with a significant portion focused on DEA applications of efficiency and productivity in both public and private sector activities. While several bibliographic collections have been reported, a comprehensive listing and analysis of DEA research covering its first 30 years of history is not available. This paper thus presents an extensive, if not nearly complete, listing of DEA research covering theoretical developments as well as “real-world” applications from inception to the year 2007. A listing of the most utilized/relevant journals, a keyword analysis, and selected statistics are presented.

Evaluation of research in efficiency and productivity:a survey and analysis of the first 30 years of scholarly literature in DEA

This book is part of a larger effort undertaken by the World Bank to understand the development experience of the 1990s, an extraordinary eventful decade. Each of the project's three volumes serves a different purpose. Development Challenges in the 1990s: Leading Policymakers Speak from Experience offers insights on the practical concerns faced by policymakers, while At the Frontlines of Development: Reflections from the World Bank considers the operational implications of the decade for the World Bank as an institution. This volume, Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform, provides comprehensive analysis of the decade's development experience and examines the impact of key policy and institutional reforms of growth. Economic Growth in the 1990s confirms and builds on the conclusions of an earlier World Bank book, The East Asian Miracle (1993), which reviewed experiences of highly successful East Asian economies. It confirms the importance of growth of fundamental principles: macro stability, market forces governing the allocation of resources, openness, and the sharing of the benefits of growth. At the same time, it echoes the finding that these principles translate into diverse policy and institutional paths, implying the economic policies and policy advice must be country-specific and institutional-sensitive if they are to be effective. The authors examine the impact of growth of key policy and institutional reforms: macroeconomic stabilization, trade liberalization, deregulation of finance, privatization, deregulation of utilities, modernization of the public sector with a view to increasing its effectiveness and accountability, and the spread of democracy and decentralization. They draw lessons both from a policy and institutional perspective and from the perspective of country experiences about how reforms in each policy and institutional area have affected growth.

/pdf/economic-growth-in-the-1990s-learning-from-a-decade-of-3ca6usw0pg.pdf

Economic growth in the 1990s : learning from a decade of reform

Decentralized government institutions are doing more of the work of government than ever before, but there is little agreement about 1) what decentralization means, or 2) how it should be measured. To overcome this confusion, this article builds on standard definitions of decentralization that include three core dimensions: fiscal, administrative, and political. The article offers an empirical test of that definition using factor analysis of data from 1996 for sixty-eight countries. Factor analysis confirms these three core dimensions and generates a score for each case in each dimension, allowing countries to be measured according to their type and degree of decentralization. In future work, these scores can be used for hypothesis testing about the causes and effects of decentralization on important social outcomes. This exercise demonstrates that conceptual confusion need not hamper research when empirical tests can help verify conceptual categories.

Decentralization: Conceptualization and Measurement *

This paper deals with the problems encountered in defining and measuring the degree of fiscal decentralization. Drawing on a recent analytical framework of the OECD, different measures of fiscal autonomy and revenue decentralization are presented which consider tax-raising powers of sub-central governments. Taking account of changes in the assignment of decision-making competencies in the course of time, new time series of annual data on the degree of fiscal decentralization are provided for 23 OECD countries in the time period between 1965 and 2001. It is shown that common measures usually employed tend to considerably overestimate the extent of fiscal decentralization. Evidence is also provided for increasing fiscal decentralization in a majority of OECD countries during the last three decades.

/pdf/public-sector-decentralization-measurement-concepts-and-3n62j2r7ao.pdf

Public Sector Decentralization: Measurement Concepts and Recent International Trends

Decentralization and economic growth revisited: an empirical note

The typical post-Bretton Woods era development approach that emphasized central government-led development efforts has changed dramatically, and local governments have clearly emerged as players in development policy. The thinking about what is important to achieve in development objectives is changing as fiscal decentralization reforms are being pursued by many countries around the world. In this context, a number of studies have attempted to quantify the impact of decentralization by relating some measure of it to economic outcomes of fiscal stability, economic growth, and public sector size. But decentralization is surprisingly difficult to measure. Nearly all cases examining the relationship between decentralization and macroeconomic performance have relied on the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) of the International Monetary Fund. However, despite its merits, GFS falls short in providing a full picture of fiscal decentralization. For some countries, however, there is data that more accurately captures fiscal responsibilities among different types of governments.

On the measurement and impact of fiscal decentralization

This paper presents a conceptual framework to better analyze the factors that improve local governance. Central to the framework are the following arguments: 1) decentralization reforms grant local governments new powers and responsibilities in three dimensions: political, administrative, and fiscal. These dimensions give local governments discretionary space; 2) ensuring appropriate use of such discretionary space requires introducing effective accountability systems. Within their discretionary space, local governments would be accountable to higher levels of government as well as to citizens; 3) public accountability mechanisms safeguard against misuse and abuse of local discretion, but they have imperfections. New forms of social accountability mechanisms, which enable direct engagement of citizens with government, emerge to complement public accountability mechanisms; and 4) public and social accountability approaches must be bridged to ensure that citizens have the ability and opportunity to demand accountability and that local governments have the means and incentives to respond to citizen demands for accountability and better service delivery. The framework is not intended as a one-size-fits-all solution to the complex public policy issue of discretion and accountability. Beyond the elements in our framework, any analysis of local governance structures needs to pay particular attention to the way local governments establish and maintain accountability relationships with their surrounding local actors.

/pdf/local-government-discretion-and-accountability-a-diagnostic-3kylsf7i1y.pdf

Local government discretion and accountability : a diagnostic framework for local governance

Decentralisation offers significant opportunities to improve government accountability by exerting stronger pressures both from below (demand) and above (supply). The literature contains many examples, however, where the potential has not been realised, partly because decentralisation reforms have often been introduced without thinking through their accountability implications. Even when accountability is taken into account, the efforts tend to emphasise either the supply or the demand side of the equation, but not both. Drawing on the sets of literature on fiscal, administrative and political decentralisation, this article presents a methodology for studying this.

Linking Local Government Discretion and Accountability in Decentralisation

This paper tests for spatial spillover effects of state-level telecommunications infrastructure investment on state output, using panel data for 48 U.S. states from 1970 through 1997. As information and communication technologies support more industrial locational freedom, states may use telecommunications infrastructure investment as a competitive tool for attracting factors of production. In a production-function framework, this effect would manifest itself as a negative output spillover effect from telecommunications infrastructure investment. Findings indicate that a state benefits from its own telecommunications infrastructure, but telecommunications investment by other states has a negative impact on its output growth path, and proximity amplifies this negative spillover effect.

Geographic and Network Neighbors: Spillover Effects of Telecommunications Infrastructure

In the last two decades there has been a worldwide interest in decentralization of government in all parts of the world. The pursuit of decentralization is widespread, as both developed and developing countries attempt to challenge central governments' monopoly of decision-making power. In the western world, decentralization is an effective tool for reorganization of the government in order to provide public services cost effectively in the post-welfare state era. Developing countries are turning to decentralization to escape from the traps of ineffective and inefficient governance, macroeconomic instability, and inadequate economic growth. Throughout post-communist Central and Eastern Europe, decentralization of the state is the direct result of the transition from socialist system to market economy and democracy. In Latin America, the origin of decentralization is the political pressure from the people for Democratization. In Africa, decentralization has served as a path to national Unity.

/pdf/concept-of-fiscal-decentralization-and-worldwide-overview-2zvuwc98hk.pdf

Serdar Yilmaz

Papers

On the measurement and impact of fiscal decentralization

Local government discretion and accountability : a diagnostic framework for local governance

Linking Local Government Discretion and Accountability in Decentralisation

Geographic and Network Neighbors: Spillover Effects of Telecommunications Infrastructure

Concept of fiscal decentralization and worldwide overview