Over the past 40 years, the service sector has become the dominant area of market economies. The public sector and services financed from public financing represent a specific group within the services sector. This paper aims to evaluate the efficiency of EU countries and find the extent to which the volume of public services (and the respective financial allocations) can have an impact on selected economic indicators. To this end, the efficiency of public expenditure in five areas of public services (general public services; health; education; social protection; and recreation, culture, and religion) in 2009 and 2016 was evaluated in relation to selected economic indicators (GDP per capita and employment in services). In addition, the efficiency of public expenditure in EU countries was evaluated in relation to the size of the public sector and traditions of public administration. For cross-country analyses within the 27 European countries, data envelopment analysis and the input-oriented variable returns to scale (VRS) model were applied. The results demonstrated that in 2009, 13 out of 27 countries were efficient as opposed to 2016, where only seven countries were efficient. In countries with bigger size of public sector, the efficiency of public expenditure on services was not established. However, there was a similarity in the efficiency of public expenditure on services between groups of EU countries regarding the tradition of public administration.

Although Western Europe is a global leader in innovation activities among the OECD countries, these activities are not distributed evenly across NUTS 2 regions. Thus, the analysis of convergence or divergence related to innovation performance and R&D expenditures among Western European NUTS 2 regions is posed as the aim of this paper. Applying differential local version of spatial autocorrelation (LISA), difference-in-difference estimation the paper reveals the local variation of convergence and divergence and general spatial regime divergence in innovation performance and R&D expenditures within Western European NUTS 2 regions. Moreover, spatial lag cross-sectional regression provides support to the consideration of R&D expenditures as determinant for innovation performance along with the continuing divergence between most of Western and Southern European NUTS 2 regions and the others. Thus, the results confirm the stability in innovation performance and R&D expenditures in Western European NUTS 2 regions which could be the source of lagging behind not only other OECD countries but BRICS countries as well. On the regional level several NUTS 2 regions demonstrated the convergence dynamics, however, the general spatial divergence regime should lead to more actions regarding R&D polices under the EU programming period of 2014-2020.

Long-term care is being prioritised due to population ageing, and hand in hand with the development of professional provision of long-term care, public expenditures will be increasing. Mainly countries with a sharp increase in the number of people aged 80+ will have to address the sustainability of long-term care systems and the procurement of relevant services. This paper aims to evaluate the forms of provision and financing of long-term care in selected OECD countries. Provision and funding of longterm care in terms of a formal system are assessed based on selected criteria using analytical methods (principal component analysis and TwoStep cluster analysis). Results of the evaluation carried out in 2008 and 2013 by means of the selected indicators of longterm care, using TwoStep cluster analysis, confirmed both similar as well as different approaches to the provision and financing of long-term care in the analysed countries. The most marked differences in the provision of care based on indicators LTC recipients aged 65+ and LTC recipients in institutions as a percentage of total LTC recipients were found between the first cluster (Australia and Korea with the highest share of LTC recipients) and the second cluster (Czech Republic, Estonia, with the lowest share of LTC recipients). In financing of long-term care (LTC expenditures on institutions as a percentage of total LTC expenditures), the most significant differences were observed between the first (Australia, Korea, with the largest share of LTC expenditures on institutions) and third cluster (mainly Nordic countries, with the lowest share of LTC expenditures on institutions of total LTC expenditures).

Local financing in advanced countries enables local governments to assess real local priorities as well as limitations. The present paper deals with financial capabilities of local governments for the development of public services, local government expenditure and fiscal expenditure decentralization in the EU28. By use of cluster analysis, local public expenditures are assessed by selected COFOG functions, as % of total local government expenditures in years 2010-2013. The results proved the largest differences in the set of countries in local government expenditures on social protection and the smallest differences in local expenditures on recreation and cultures, housing and community amenities.

Services are a dynamically developing economic sector in all countries. The paper focuses on public services, evaluated from the perspective of fiscal decentralization. It aims to evaluate the level of fiscal decentralization of expenditures in selected categories of public services in European countries. For this purpose, government expenditures by the local government sector are analyzed in the set of the selected 28 European countries in the period 2010-2018. Cluster analysis has been carried out in order to determine four clusters of countries based on their level of decentralization of expenditures on services. The results show differences in the extent of decentralization between the European countries in the provision of specific public services and reflect the form of financing of local public needs. A low level of fiscal decentralization of expenditures on services (public order and safety; housing and community amenities; recreation, culture, and religion) was observed in the majority of the countries. However, the majority of the countries failed to prove a high level of fiscal decentralization of expenditures on services (social protection, health, education) and a medium level of decentralization of expenditures in terms of general public services and services of economic affairs. These findings demonstrate that the degree of decentralization of public services is determined, to a certain degree, determined by country history and its geographical location, as well as by the different roles of sector-specific public policies. The findings can be helpful for creators of local public policies, strategic plans, and financial concepts.