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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may E U R O P E A N C E N T R A L B A N K WO R K I N G PA P E R S E R I E E U R O P E A N C E N T R A L B A N K WO R K I N G PA P E R S E R I E S AbstractWe compute public sector performance (PSP) and efficiency (PSE) indicators, comprising a composite and seven sub-indicators, for 23 industrialised countries. The first four sub-indicators are "opportunity" indicators that take into account administrative, education and health outcomes and the quality of public infrastructure and that support the rule of law and a level playing-field in a market economy. Three other indicators reflect the standard "Musgravian" tasks for government: allocation, distribution, and stabilisation. The input and output efficiency of public sectors across countries is then measured via a non-parametric production frontier technique.Keywords: Government expenditure, Efficiency, Free Disposable Hull, Production possibility frontier.JEL Classification Numbers: C14, H50. ECB Working Paper No 242 July 20035 Non-technical summaryIn this paper we study the performance and the efficiency of the public sectors of 23 industrialised OECD countries. We compute public sector performance (PSP) and efficiency indicators (PSE) for the government as whole and for its core functions. When deriving performance indicators we distinguish the role of government in providing "opportunities" and a level playing field in the market process and the traditional "Musgravian" tasks of government. "Opportunity"indicators look at administrative, education, health, and public infrastructure outcomes. "Musgravian" indicators assess governments' performance in allocation, distribution, and stabilisation. A number of socio-economic indicators serve as proxies for performance.In assessing the efficiency of public sectors, we look at total public spending and a number of spending categories as proxies for resource use. These are set in relation to performance indicators as they can be seen as reflecting the opportunity costs of public sector activities. The ratio of performance indicators and public spending yields indicators of efficiency for each country.Finally, we use a non-parametric framework to compute a so-called production possibility frontier, and calculate input efficiency and output efficiency scores in order to rank the sample countries in terms of public spending efficiency.We find that the difference in overall performance is moderate across the sample countr...

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