Naslov
Measuring public administration efficiency in selected transition countries

Autori
Obadić, Alka ; Bađun, Marijana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u zbornicima skupova, cjeloviti rad (in extenso), znanstveni

Izvornik
Fifth International Conference - Entreprise in Transition, Electronic Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference / Reić, Zlatan - Split : Tučepi : Ekonomski fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu, 2003, 344-363

Skup
Fifth International Conference - Entreprise in Transition

Mjesto i datum
Tučepi, Hrvatska; Split, Hrvatska, 22.05.2003. - 24.05.2003

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
public adminstration ; efficiency ; employment
(public adminstration ; efficiency ; employment ; transition countries)

Sažetak
There is a growing perception that inadequate public administration was one of the key impediments to the successful transition from centralized systems towards a more democratic society and free-market economy. Still and all, public administration remained one of the weakest links in the institutional development process in transition countries and thus turned into an obstacle to economic growth (UNDP, 2001:2). Recently, there has been a notion that inefficient public administrations raise transaction costs by which they hamper investments in a particular country. Although there are many different dimensions of efficiency, this paper concentrates only on two: the efficiency of public administration in terms of corruption and regulatory impediments to starting a private sector business. Although inclusion of bureaucratic delays would probably contribute to connecting corruption and regulatory burden, it has been left out due to lack of data. During the early public administration reform process, states in Central and Eastern Europe tended to use across-the board cuts in staff numbers as the main reform tool (UNDP, 2001: 1). Also, there has been a pressure to compress wages in order to obtain fiscal savings. This is why we include relative size of government administration employment and a measure of relative wages of government employees in our analysis to find out whether there is a link between these variables and public administration efficiency in selected transition countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia). In the case of Croatia, the paper examines the key changes in the public administration paid net wages and average net wages in other sectors according to educational level of employees. The main research problem is paucity of data and the question of how to measure the "intangible". Also, countries apply different definitions of government employment and do not adequately compare public administration wages with private sector wages. Governance indicators usually have subjective values ranked on an ordinal scale and are subject to measurement error. In majority of the studies, it is not quite clear what is meant under the terms "quality", "effectiveness" and "efficiency" and how (if) they are related. Our preliminary results suggest that wages are a more explanatory variable (compared to employment) in terms of public administration corruption. Number of employees appears to be more strongly linked with the regulation of entry. Furthermore, there seems to be a positive correlation between bureaucracy quality (International Country Risk Guide definition) and corruption. However, we do not determine the direction of causality and our results are quite tentative because we use data only for 2001. Poor efficiency results of Croatian public administration appear to be connected with lower wages of highly educated public employees in comparison to private sector employees ; with the lack of strict internal anti-corruption control ; high level of patronage ; non-existence of appropriate performance incentives ; and rather weak civic society. However, all these variables should be subject of further, more detailed, research. World Bank experience shows that public administration reforms based on decreasing the number of employees and increasing their wages at the same time did not have much success - best qualified employees left the public administration and later the number of employees again increased. This is why we suggest several other ways of improving public administration efficiency: encouraging innovations, meritocratic recruitment, internal anti-corruption control based on ethical codes of behaviour, establishment of new values among public officials, simplifying regulation of entry, strengthening of the civic society. In many ways, public administration reform cannot be separated as a single process without reforming the state, its role and functions.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Ekonomija

POVEZANOST RADA