Suchergebnisse

Municipal amalgamation reforms have been advocated as ways to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance capacity in local government service provision. Research on the consequences of amalgamations has reached maturity in terms of theories, research designs and methods, justifying a systematic survey of results. This article provides a synthesis of the empirical literature published over the last 20 years, organizing the effects of amalgamations into three categories: economic efficiency and cost savings, managerial implications, and democratic outcomes. Despite the significant variation across countries and reforms, some regularities emerge: cost savings being primarily limited to general administration expenditures (wages, office supplies, and so on), few changes in the quality of local services, and the diminished quality of local democracy. Several studies point to amalgamation reforms experiencing a trade-off between efficiency and ...

Research on the use of municipal corporations to deliver local and regional public services has evolved significantly in the past decade. Most of this work addresses the performance of this service-delivery mode in relation to local bureaucracies. However, much less is known about the drivers for the adoption of municipal corporations in the first place. This article reviews the main determinants of adoption – service characteristics, institutional and regulatory settings, political constraints and financial conditions – and highlights the need for comparative research across countries. ; This work was supported by the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia [UID/CPO/00758/2013]; Programa Operacional da Regiao Norte, NORTE2020 [NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037 ...

This paper discusses the use of a market-driven technique – transfer of development rights (TDR) – to preserve land from development while guaranteeing the rights of property owners. While the technique is often used in the United States, Europe has a lot more urgency in land preservation but it is still lagging in the use of market based instruments such as the transfer of development rights. This paper explores the economic arguments favoring the use of TDR programs, discusses the difficulties in implementing these programs in Europe, where command-and-control regulation has been preferred in land preservation to market-based solutions, and presents tentative hypotheses to explain the adoption of TDR programs in local communities. Preliminary data collected for TDR programs in Florida supports some of the arguments presented and encourages researchers to extend this empirical analysis to European ...

Paper prepared for the Florida Political Science Association meeting March 23-24, 2001 Jacksonville, FL ; Land use management is relevant to the discussion of environmental policy because regulation of land use and growth has been used as an instrument of environmentally concerned actors. More generally, growth management policy is best characterized as regulatory, because state and local governments use public policy to direct private behavior (Feiock, 1994). It is appropriate to note however that, the consequences of growth management are inherently distributive. Molotch (1976) depicted a city as an aggregate of competing land-based interests. Decisions regarding growth, at the local or any other level, are then decisions of who gets what, where, and how (Lasswell, 1936). These interests refer not only to competition for economic development but also for quality of life under the heading of growth management. In this discussion of land use management policy, I proceed in the following manner. First, I begin by describing the history and evolution of American land use planning activities and policies throughout the XX century. Next, I succinctly describe the land use policy tools employed over the years and the context in which they have been used. In the core of the paper, I apply a transaction cost theory to explain the relationship between states and localities in terms of economic and political transaction costs. I conclude with some suggestions regarding hypothesis and future theory ...

What are the consequences of fragmenting political and administrative authority within municipalities? Portugal provides an excellent setting to study the effects of sub-city institutional fragmentation because each of its 308 municipal governments is divided into sub-municipal governments (SMUs). The 4259 SMUs deliver services to the residents and its executive leader serves on the city council. In this paper we investigate the determinants of voter turnout in these SMUs. We argue that the size and density of SMUs affects electoral participation, but this effect is mediated by the municipal context. High levels of population concentration and low levels of territorial fragmentation at the municipal level are expected to improve voter mobilization efforts and mitigate the negative effect of size and density on voter turnout. Hierarchical linear analysis of municipal and SMU data finds strong support for size and density effects and moderate support for multilevel relationships. ; This research is partially supported by the "Programa Operacional da Região Norte", NORTE2020, in the context of project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037 (SmartEGOV) and by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) [Grant n. º PEst-OE/CJP/UI0758/2014], and the Estonian Research Council Grant PUT-1142. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Portuguese Science and Technology ...

Water supply is essential to public health, quality of life, environmental protection, economic activity, and sustainable development. In this context, it is imperative to assure the continuous improvement of all processes and practices conducive to guarantee water quality and safety. Water Safety Plans (WSPs) by water utilities are an important public policy tool to accomplish these goals. This manuscript reviews the international evidence of the adoption and implementation of water safety planning and reports the current situation in Portugal, as part of the necessary adjustment of the national legal framework to the publication of the Directive (EU) 2015/1787, October 6th, on water quality for human consumption. The aim is to draw lessons from several successful WSP experiments around the world and extract lessons from these cases when drafting new legislation in Portugal and elsewhere. Findings suggest there are four critical dimensions and key elements of success in developing and implementing WSPs: leadership commitment, technical knowledge, governance, and interagency collaboration. ; This research is partially supported by the "Programa Operacional da Região Norte", NORTE2020, in the context of project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037 (SmartEGOV) and by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) [Grant No. ...

The use of market mechanisms has been progressively introduced as an alternative solution to public service delivery since the 1980s. This work addresses an uncommon public service function – civil law notaries – and seeks to analyse the factors that led to the formation of diverse market structures as a result of the choice of the privatization path over civil service status by public notaries. The Portuguese government gave public notaries the choice of becoming private, and regulated a numerus clausus of notaries by district. Since the reform was completed, a diversity of market structures have prevailed throughout the 278 notarial districts. Our key hypothesis is that markets with multiple agents formed in jurisdictions having a larger and more profitable number of notary and legal acts that provided financial survival and profit. In contrast, monopolies formed as a result of a perceived absence of market opportunities and demand. During the period 2010–11 we collected data from official statistics of the notary system supplemented by data on the economic and demographic features of each jurisdiction. Multinomial logistic regression is used to test the key hypothesis regarding market arrangements in the 278 notarial districts of continental Portugal. Points for practitioners The trend in the deregulation of the notary profession is likely to continue to sweep European Union countries. Lessons can be drawn from the Portuguese experience, where the change from civil service status is not yet mandatory for all notaries, but financial constraints and fiscal pressures indicate privatization as the inevitable path.

Depuis les années 80, on fait de plus en plus appel aux mécanismes de marché en tant que solution alternative à la prestation de service public. La présente étude s'intéresse à une fonction singulière de la fonction publique – les notaires – et tente d'analyser les facteurs qui ont conduit à la formation de structures de marché différentes suite au choix opéré par certains notaires, qui ont préféré suivre la voie de la privatisation au lieu de conserver leur statut de fonctionnaire. Le gouvernement portugais a autorisé les notaires à opter pour le privé et prévu un numerus clausus de notaires par circonscription. Depuis la fin de la réforme, différentes structures de marché sont présentes dans les 278 arrondissements notariaux. Notre principale hypothèse est que des marchés comportant plusieurs agents se sont formés dans les arrondissements où les actes notariés et juridiques sont plus nombreux et plus rentables et assurent la survie financière et le profit. En revanche, des monopoles se sont formés sous l'effet de l'absence perçue d'opportunités commerciales et de demande. Pendant la période 2010-2011, nous avons recueilli des données émanant de statistiques officielles du système notarial, que nous avons complétées par des données sur les caractéristiques économiques et démographiques de chaque arrondissement. Nous avons effectué une régression logistique multinomiale pour vérifier l'hypothèse principale concernant la structure du marché dans les 278 arrondissements notariaux du Portugal continental. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens La tendance à la dérégulation de la profession notariale risque de continuer à progresser dans les pays de l'Union européenne. Des enseignements peuvent être tirés de l'expérience portugaise, où l'abandon du statut de fonctionnaire n'est pas encore obligatoire pour tous les notaires, mais où la privatisation semble être l'option inévitable compte tenu des contraintes financières et des pressions budgétaires.

The use of market mechanisms has been progressively introduced as an alternative solution to public service delivery since the 1980s. This work addresses an uncommon public service function – civil law notaries – and seeks to analyse the factors that led to the formation of diverse market structures as a result of the choice of the privatization path over civil service status by public notaries. The Portuguese government allowed public notaries the choice to go private and regulated a numerus clausus of notaries by district. After the reform was completed, a diversity of market structures prevails throughout the 278 notarial districts. Our key hypothesis is that markets with multiple agents formed in jurisdictions having a larger and more profitable number of notary and legal acts that provided financial survival and profit. In contrast, monopolies formed as a result of a perceived absence of market opportunities and demand. During the period 2010-2011 we collected data from official statistics of the notary system supplemented by data on the economic and demographic features of each jurisdiction. Multinomial logistic regression is used to test the key hypothesis regarding market arrangements in the 278 notarial districts of Continental Portugal. ; This work was supported by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – FCT) (grant number ...