Presentation on ‘ Risk Taking in the Local Public Sector: Explaining Participation in a Sector-led Performance Benchmarking Exercise of Swedish Municipalities ’ by Tim Jaekel

On April 28 a presentation on ‘Risk Taking in the Local Public Sector: Explaining Participation in a Sector-led Performance Benchmarking Exercise of Swedish Municipalities’ by Tim Jaekel, Assistant Professor at the Department of Theory and Practice of Public Administration will take place at HSE.

Abstract:
Using spatial econometrics this paper analyzes peer effects and the impact of relative performance gaps on participation decision in a sector-led performance benchmarking exercise of Swedish municipalities. While in other countries only a small fraction of local governments uses benchmarking to improve performance, the benchmarking exercise in Sweden is characterized by a continuous inflow of participants. A spatial autoregressive logistic regression approach is adopted to test a series of hypotheses of (spatial) spillover and the impact of relative performance on participation decision. The focus is on Peer Effects in Participation Decision and Risk Taking in a situation of uncertainty about the costs and benefits regarding electoral support from voters and reputation. By doing so the paper provides an empirical test of Meier et al.’s (2015) model, it also contributes to the development of a coherent theory of benchmarking in the local public sector (Ammons and Kroenigk 2014). I find that negative performance gaps are a driver for innovative behaviour, i.e. benchmarking participation decision tendency. Size, in terms of inhabitants, has also an positive impact on participation tendency. I find only limited evidence for peer effects in participation tendency: There is no additional tendency to cluster among new participants, regardless of which conceptualization of proximity is used.

Working language: English

Start time: 16.30

Address: 20 Myasnitskaya Ulitsa, Room 440.

Everyone interested is welcome.

If you need a pass to HSE, please contact Nikolay Sobolev via email: nsobolev@hse.ru.