Improving public services delivery: Economists’ perspective

Abstract

Improving public services delivery is one of the central tasks of public administration reforms, which substantiates the high importance of analysing approaches to tackling it. The paper discusses avenues for enhancing the quality of public services delivery in the light of the findings of the latest economic research. Methodologically, the study rests on the principles of public administration. The research methods of content analysis and systematization were applied. The results of the study show that today’s approaches to improving public services do not take into account the important aspects of their production and delivery, which are revealed by the principal-agent model and the concept of search, experience and credence goods that has over half a century of history. The article shows that the empirically established negative consequences of new public management applied in the areas, such as health care and education, are direct consequences of this neglect. We formulate a number of proposals concerning the improvement of public services delivery, namely to consider the type of service, to distinguish between the quality of service and the quality of servicing, and to produce credence goods and high-quality services in non-profit organizations while involving workers oriented towards serving the society.