Measuring Efficiency in Local Government: An Analysis of New South Wales Municipalities' Domestic Waste Management Function.(Statistical Data Included)

Policy Studies Journal, June, 2001 by Dollery, Brian E.; Worthington, Andrew C.

Data envelopment analysis is used to measure the technical and scale efficiency of the domestic waste management function in 103 New South Wales local governments. After allowance is made for nondiscretionary environmental factors that may affect the provision of these local public services, such as congestion and the inability to operate machinery in densely populated urban areas, comparison of efficiency across geographic/demographic criteria is made.

The results suggest that, on average, waste management inputs could be reduced to just over 65% of the current level based upon ...