Abstract
Socio-demographic changes and financial restrictions in the context of the economic downturn have stressed the importance of increasing the efficiency in the provision of local public services. Among them, early child care is regarded as a crucial service for the positive effect on children scholastic achievements, female labor market participation as well as aggregate fertility rates. This chapter aims at analyzing the efficiency in the provision of early child care in Italy and studying the impact of the demand-side factors. We apply a two-stage semi-parametric approach to a large sample of Italian municipalities in the period 2001–2005. First, a bootstrapped Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to estimate the performance in the provision of early child care; then, a semi-parametric truncated estimation is employed to study whether municipalities react to demand-side pressures, such as women participation to labor market, by increasing the efficiency in the provision. DEA results show a remarkable heterogeneity in the provision of child care across Italian municipalities. We also find that demand-side pressure affects the efficiency.
Keywords
- Local public services
- Early child care
- Efficiency
- Two-stage
- DEA
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
Buying options
Source Our computation on data drawn from the CCC dataset
Notes
- 1.
More details on the Lisbon Agenda can be found here: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/00100-r1.en0.htm.
- 2.
The reduction of intergovernmental transfers as a consequence of fiscal consolidation policies is not only an Italian fact. Indeed, recent studies on fiscal consolidation have underlined the contribution of intergovernmental transfer reductions to fiscal consolidation in different countries (OECD 2013; Vammalle and Hulbert 2013; European Commission 2014).
- 3.
According to OECD, Denmark spent in 2007 for child care 0.8% of GDP, Finland 0.7%, UK 0.4%, France 0.4%, Italy 0.2%, Germany 0.1% (Chapple and Richardson 2009).
- 4.
For a recent survey on local governments’ efficiency, see e.g. Narbón-Perpiñá and De Witte (2018).
- 5.
On the contrary, there is a large literature on the effect of child care on several outcomes, such as fertility rates (Del Boca 2002; Bjorklund 2006), children’s school achievement (Carneiro and Heckman 2003; Heckman 2006; Havnes and Mogstad 2011a), upward intergenerational mobility (Chetty et al. 2014) and, especially, WLFP (Baker et al. 2008; Del Boca et al. 2008; Havnes and Mogstad 2011b; Brilli et al. 2016).
- 6.
Nonparametric methods have been applied in many public sector activities, such as public library (De Witte and Geys 2013), judicial districts (Finocchiaro Castro and Guccio 2012), higher education (Johnes 2006; Guccio et al. 2016), healthcare (Cavalieri et al. 2018), care for the elderly sector (Borge and Haraldsvik 2009), heritage authorities (Finocchiaro Castro et al. 2011).
- 7.
For further analytical details on DEA models, see e.g. Fried et al. (2008).
- 8.
Simar and Wilson (2007, 2011) have shown that traditional estimators (e.g., OLS, Tobit) of the second-stage regression (2) yield to biased estimates due to serial correlation of efficiency scores, while their two-step bias-corrected semi-parametric procedure is the only method to consistently estimate the second-stage model (2).
References
Agasisti, T., Dal Bianco, A., & Griffini, M. (2016). The public sector efficiency in Italy: The case of Lombardy municipalities in the provision of the essential public services. Economia pubblica, 1, 59–84.
Asatryan, Z., & De Witte, K. (2015). Direct democracy and local government efficiency. European Journal of Political Economy, 39, 58–66.
Baker, M., Gruber, J., & Milligan, K. (2008). Universal child care, maternal labor supply, and family well-being. Journal of Political Economy, 116(4), 709–745.
Balduzzi, P., & Grembi, V. (2011). Fiscal rules and window dressing: The case of Italian municipalities. Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia, 70(1), 97–122.
Barone, G., & Mocetti, S. (2011). Tax morale and public spending inefficiency. International Tax and Public Finance, 18(6), 724–749.
Björklund, A. (2006). Does family policy affect fertility? Journal of population economics, 19(1), 3–24.
Bjurek, H., Kjulin, U., & Gustafsson, B. (1992). Efficiency, productivity and determinants of inefficiency at public day care centers in Sweden. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, S173–S187.
Boetti, L., Piacenza, M., & Turati, G. (2012). Decentralization and local governments’ performance: how does fiscal autonomy affect spending efficiency? FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, 68(3), 269–302.
Borge, L. E., & Haraldsvik, M. (2009). Efficiency potential and determinants of efficiency: An analysis of the care for the elderly sector in Norway. International Tax and Public Finance, 16(4), 468–486.
Borge, L. E., Falch, T., & Tovmo, P. (2008). Public sector efficiency: The roles of political and budgetary institutions, fiscal capacity, and democratic participation. Public Choice, 136(3–4), 475–495.
Brilli, Y., Del Boca, D., & Pronzato, C. D. (2016). Does child care availability play a role in maternal employment and children’s development? Evidence from Italy. Review of Economics of the Household, 14(1), 27–51.
Carneiro, P., & Heckman, J. J. (2003). Human Capital Policy. In J. J. Heckman & A. B. Krueger (Eds.), Inequality in America: What role for Human capital Policies?. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cavalieri, M., Guccio, C., Lisi, D., & Pignataro, G. (2018). Does the Extent of per Case Payment System Affect Hospital Efficiency? Evidence from the Italian NHS. Public Finance Review, 46(1), 117–149.
Chapple, S., & Richardson, D. (2009). Doing better for children. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Charnes, A., Cooper, W. W., & Rhodes, E. (1978). Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research, 2(6), 429–444.
Chetty, R., Hendren, N., Kline, P., & Saez, E. (2014). Where is the land of opportunity? The geography of intergenerational mobility in the United States. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(4), 1553–1623.
De Witte, K., & Geys, B. (2013). Citizen coproduction and efficient public good provision: Theory and evidence from local public libraries. European Journal of Operational Research, 224(3), 592–602.
Del Boca, D. (2002). The effect of child care and part time opportunities on participation and fertility decisions in Italy. Journal of population economics, 15(3), 549–573.
Del Boca, D., Pasqua, S., & Pronzato, C. (2008). Motherhood and market work decisions in institutional context: A European perspective. Oxford Economic Papers, 61(suppl_1), i147–i171.
D’Inverno, G., Carosi, L., & Ravagli, L. (2018). Global public spending efficiency in Tuscan municipalities. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 61, 102–113.
European Commission. (2014). Report on Public Finances in EMU 2014. Economic and Financial Affairs, European Economy no. 9/2014, Brussels.
Farrell, M. J. (1957). The measurement of productive efficiency. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General), 120(3), 253–290.
Fazioli, R., & Filippini, M. (1997). Stima di una cost-efficiency frontier e valutazione della qualità per l’offerta di servizi sociali: il caso del servizio asilo nido in Italia. Working Paper DSE no. 287.
Finocchiaro Castro, M., & Guccio, C. (2014). Searching for the source of technical inefficiency in Italian judicial districts: an empirical investigation. European Journal of Law and Economics, 38(3), 369–391.
Finocchiaro Castro, M., Guccio, C., & Rizzo, I. (2011). Public intervention on heritage conservation and determinants of heritage authorities’ performance: a semi-parametric analysis. International tax and public finance, 18(1), 1–16.
Fried, H., Lovell, C., & Schmidt, S. (2008). Efficiency and productivity. In H. Fried, C. Lovell, & S. Schmidt (Eds.), The measurement of productive efficiency and productivity growth. New York: Oxford University Press.
Geys, B., Heinemann, F., & Kalb, A. (2008). Local governments in the wake of demographic change: Evidence from German municipalities. FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, 64(4), 434–457.
Giordano, R., & Tommasino, P. (2013). Public-sector efficiency and political culture. FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, 69(3), 289–316.
Gori, E., & Fissi, S. (2012). Le performance del servizio asili nido nei Comuni italiani. Economia Aziendale Online, 2(4), 365–379.
Guccio, C., Martorana, M. F., & Mazza, I. (2016). Efficiency assessment and convergence in teaching and research in Italian public universities. Scientometrics, 107(3), 1063–1094.
Havnes, T., & Mogstad, M. (2011a). No child left behind: Subsidized child care and children’s long-run outcomes. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 3(2), 97–129.
Havnes, T., & Mogstad, M. (2011b). Money for nothing? Universal child care and maternal employment. Journal of Public Economics, 95(11–12), 1455–1465.
Heckman, J. J. (2006). Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged children. Science, 312(5782), 1900–1902.
Istat, (2016). Asili nido e altri servizi socio-educativi per la prima infanzia. Roma: Il censimento delle unità di offerta e la spesa dei comuni.
Johnes, J. (2006). Measuring teaching efficiency in higher education: An application of data envelopment analysis to economics graduates from UK Universities 1993. European Journal of Operational Research, 174(1), 443–456.
Montén, A., & Thater, C. (2011). Determinants of efficiency in child-care provision. FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, 67(4), 378–403.
Nakazawa, K. (2014). Does the method of amalgamation affect cost inefficiency of the new municipalities? Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 4(4), 143–154.
Narbón-Perpiñá, I., & De Witte, K. (2018). Local governments’ efficiency: A systematic literature review—part I. International Transactions in Operational Research, 25(2), 431–468.
OECD. (2013). Fiscal federalism 2014: Making decentralization work. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Simar, L., & Wilson, P. W. (1998). Sensitivity analysis of efficiency scores: How to bootstrap in nonparametric frontier models. Management Science, 44(1), 49–61.
Simar, L., & Wilson, P. W. (2000). Statistical inference in nonparametric frontier models: The state of the art. Journal of Productivity Analysis, 13, 49–78.
Simar, L., & Wilson, P. W. (2007). Estimation and inference in two-stage, semi-parametric models of production processes. Journal of Econometrics, 136(1), 31–64.
Simar, L., & Wilson, P. W. (2011). Two-stage DEA: Caveat emptor. Journal of Productivity Analysis, 36(2), 205.
Sheather, S. J., & Jones, M. C. (1991). A reliable data‐based bandwidth selection method for kernel density estimation. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Methodological), 53(3), 683–690.
Vammalle, C., & Hulbert, C. (2013). Sub-national Finances and Fiscal Consolidation: Walking on Thin Ice. OECD Regional Development Working Papers, No. 2013/02, OECD Publishing, Paris.
Wand, M. P., & Jones, M. C. (1995). Kernel smoothing. London: Chapman&Hall.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Guccio, C., Lisi, D., Martorana, M. (2019). Efficiency of Italian Early Child Care Provision: A Bootstrapped DEA Assessment. In: Kunizaki, M., Nakamura, K., Sugahara, K., Yanagihara, M. (eds) Advances in Local Public Economics . New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives, vol 37. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3107-7_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3107-7_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-3106-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-3107-7
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)