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Administrative scale economies in local government

An empirical analysis of Sabah municipalities, 2000 to 2009

Bibliographic Data

ID10864121
AuthorsSiew King Ting (0000-0002-1267-4809, Universiti Teknologi MARA, MALAYSIA, corresponding author), Brian Dollery (0000-0003-2760-865X, University of New England), Renato A Villano (0000-0003-2581-6623, University of New England), Rene Villano (University of New England)
Year2014
Volume51
Issue13
Pages2899-2915
Publication date2014-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUrban Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0042-0980 • E-ISSN: 1360-063X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0042098013512873
OpenAlexW2145186199
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited38

Municipal corporate centres not only perform multiple administrative functions, including supervision, monitoring and budgeting of the overall operation of local government, but also absorb significant resources. From a public policy perspective, it is thus important to determine whether administrative scale economies exist. Adopting an econometric approach, this paper investigates administrative scale effects and the determinants of administrative intensity at the corporate level for 22 local authorities in the Malaysian state of Sabah from 2000 to 2009. Our results indicate that there is an inverted U-shaped scale effect for staff size on administrative intensity in the small urban sample, while own-source revenue is the most important factor in determining administrative intensity in all local authorities and big urban samples. Several policy recommendations are proposed

Business · Econometric analysis · Econometric model · Econometrics · Economics · Economies of scale · Geography · Government (linguistics · Local government · Political science · Public economics · Regional science · Revenue · Sample (material · Scale (ratio · State (computer science · Economic Growth and Fiscal Policies · Finance · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Marketing · Public Administration

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Unique citing works15
Citations per year1,5
Citation span2016 - 2026 (11)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 15
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