Polish Local Governments Research Articles

Local Political Business Cycles and Administration Spending in Polish Local Governments

Summary Subject and purpose of work: The purpose of this article is to verify the hypothesis of the occurrence of political business cycles at the self-governmental level in Poland. Materials and methods: The article presents a quantitative analysis of expenditures on remuneration in the administration of Polish self-governments at the county (district) level (in the period 2007–2018) and at province (regional) level (in the period 1999–2018) with the use of Arellano-Bond and LSDVC estimators. Results: The panel data analysis makes it possible to conclude that in Polish self-governments cyclical fluctuations of expenditure on remuneration can be observed. The increase in salaries depends on the power of the ruling coalition as well as unemployment and the output gap in a region. In the case of provinces and counties, also the increase of investment expenditures significantly affects the increase of salaries. Conclusions: The results of the estimation of models clearly point to the presence of cyclical distortions in remuneration in public administration, which are caused by the upcoming elections.

Fiscal Consolidations in Polish Local Governments in the Period 2008–2016: Course and Causes

The article presents strategies of fiscal consolidations conducted in Poland in cities with powiat rights, and a study of causes behind the decision to conduct such fiscal consolidations. Local governments showing an improvement of their public finances have been distinguished; and based on that, a description of various methods of reduction of expenditures, deficit or debt in Polish local governments has been presented. An analysis of data shows the dominance of consolidations on the revenue side. The study has identified few cases of expenditure cuts, and they mostly included investments, public transport and housing expenditures. Besides the description of data concerning fiscal consolidations, the article also presents a multivariate probit regression model and logistic regression model estimated based on panel data aimed at studying the determinants of conducting financial consolidations in a given local government. The hypotheses that macroeconomic variables and the election cycle have a statistically significant effect on the decision to conduct consolidation have been positively verified; whereas the hypothesis that other political factors significantly affect the probability of improvement of the financial situation of a local government have been verified negatively.

Debt of Polish Local Governments and Assuming its Supplies in the Years 2011-2017

Debt of Polish Local Governments and Assuming its Supplies in the Years 2011-2017

Information system for city logistics. The case of Poland

Abstract According to the European Commission (2007), in the cities particular emphasis should be placed on the implementation of actions that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, noise and other pollutions. The implementation of these objectives requires access to much up-to-date information including the type and size of the flow of goods, passenger car traffic in the city, the number of accidents caused by drivers of trucks and cars, etc. Access to current data can greatly support local authorities in making the right decisions in the field of urban logistics (Malecki et al., 2014). Unfortunately, in most Polish cities such information is not collected or is collected irregularly. Consequently, in many cities decisions concerning the coordination of the flow of cargo and people in the city are made intuitively rather than based on actual data. In this paper the authors have set two - theoretical and empirical - objectives. The theoretical purpose concerns the authorial concept of a simplified city logistics information system. The empirical objective includes an analysis of the current state of logistics information systems in the selected cities and identification of the activities of Polish local governments in collecting and analysing data in the field of people and goods movement within the city. In order to identify the relationships between the extent of information collection; the size of the research city; and the organisation of the task related to the passenger and freight transport, the correspondence analysis was used.

Public managers’ perception of performance information: the evidence from Polish local governments

ABSTRACTPerformance management requires wise utilization of performance information to generate expected results. The framework of Performance Information Utilization (PIU) explains why and how performance information is used in the public sector, although it does so without recognizing the role of the information user’s perception. This article adapts the information system theories to conceptualize perception of performance information (PPI). Statistical analysis confirmed the validity of the construct and showed a significant relationship between quality and usefulness of performance information, and usefulness of multiple performance information systems. Tested model offers new insights in explaining the use of performance information in local governments.

Investment Offer as an Expression of Marketing Orientation of Polish Local Governments in the Context of their Investment Attractiveness

The marketing concept of the functioning of territorial units is well-known today, both in the literature of the subject and in practice, although the activities undertaken vary in their intensity and scope. The expressions of marketing thinking and actions are, among other things, activities undertaken by local governments in the area of shaping the offer of a territorial unit. In our research, we focused on the territorial investment offer of the Polish local regions (NUTS 5), as well as actions taken by local governments as the entities with the most real opportunities for shaping this offer. The main goal of our research was the exploration of market orientation (MO) and investment offer (IO) in the practice of local governments, and then an attempt to link the undertaken actions with their potential investment attractiveness (PAI). The conclusions contained in this article are based on research conducted on a random sample of 277 Polish local regions with the use of three research methods: electronic audit of the official web portals of local regions, the mystery stakeholder, and an electronic survey sent to the official administrative representatives of the local regions in the sample.The conducted research shows that Polish local governments are slowly adopting MO, increasingly identifying their customers (including investors) and knowingly providing the expected benefits. As part of the conducted research a wide collection of good practices was developed in the area of shaping the investment offer and marketing approach which should be promoted and discussed.

Budżet partycypacyjny jako mechanizm współrządzenia miastem

<p>Jednym z możliwych sposobów poradzenia sobie ze współczesnym kryzysem demokracji mogą być rozwiązania zmierzające do zwiększania społeczno-politycznej partycypacji obywateli. Rozwiązania te powinny się opierać na założeniach koncepcji governance. Przykładem metody (mechanizmu) włączania obywateli w proces współdecydowania, a tym samym zwiększania ich zaangażowania w kształtowanie polityki miejskiej jest zyskujący coraz większą popularność w polskich samorządach budżet obywatelski. Na ile jednak jest to narzędzie partycypatywne, oparte na rzeczywistym i aktywnym uczestniczeniu mieszkańców w jego realizacji? Celem artykułu jest próba odpowiedzi na tak sformułowane pytanie.</p>

Inter-local relations and trans-scaling through finance in Poland

Inter-local cooperation is difficult to measure. In Poland, however, the data-set concerning financial transfers between local government budgets (one of the most popular quantitative measures of cooperation) has never been described in scientific literature. This paper aims at contributing to fill this gap. On the basis of the budget expenditures of all Polish local governments, we applied two research methods: OLS regression and Heckman two-stage regression. The results show that the decision whether to get into cooperation, and the decision on the extent of involvement are driven by different factors.

Is Small Beautiful? The Quasi-experimental Analysis of the Impact of Territorial Fragmentation on Costs in Polish Local Governments

Debates on the impact of size of subnational jurisdiction on the costs of public-service delivery have a very long tradition, but results are still far from conclusive. This article applies a quasi-experimental scheme of the synthetic control method for Polish municipal fragmentation to analyze the impact of territorial reform on administrative spending as well as on the operating surplus of the budget. Earlier studies using similar methods focused on amalgamation reforms, so the study of territorial fragmentation is an important new contribution to knowledge on scale effects. The analysis clearly confirms the existence of economy of scale in administrative services. The result for the operating surplus is less clear and more ambiguous. Results of the study are to a large extent a mirror of earlier analysis of territorial amalgamation consequences, which confirms the importance of scale for administrative costs, but not necessarily for costs of other local services.

Are polish theatres autonomous? Artistic institutions in a bureaucratic system of culture funding

ABSTRACTThe culture funding systems based on the arm's length mechanism are generally believed to secure more autonomy of artistic institutions than ‘bureaucratic’ systems which directly involve politicians or public servants in the allocation of public funds. There is a wide range of academic literature that defend this approach. The aim of this paper is to readdress this view and show that it stems from typology-based preconceptions rather than real-life policy-making. To this end, the article analyses relations between public theatres and local funding bodies in Poland, where culture funding system is characterised by a bureaucratic decision-making. Mixed methods were applied using questionnaires and focus groups with public servants and theatre directors. The paper suggests that, although Polish local governments play a dominant role in the arts funding, their intervention in the area of culture has merely administrative nature and, in general, does not entail interference in the artistic activity.

Russian direction in the paradiplomacy of Polish local governments

Russian direction in the paradiplomacy of Polish local governments

Changes in the credit risk profile of polish local governments. An assessment of unsystematic risk

Changes in the credit risk profile of polish local governments. An assessment of unsystematic risk

Entrepreneurship Support in Local Development Process – Russian Experience in Sankt Petersburg Region

Entrepreneurship support activities are crucial in local management no matter what country they are used in. Local structures are usually used actively to support local development and it is very important to construct a set of entrepreneurship support instruments which is effective. To achieve that it may be useful to use foreign experience in this matter. In the article the authors outlined the instruments used in Sankt Petersburg region. The evaluation of the instruments was introduced by Russian companies which may be helpful for Polish local governments to improve their instruments systems.

Analysis of the effectiveness of public services provision by local governments in the years 2007–2013

The aim of this article is a multi-faceted analysis of efficiency of public services provision on the example of Polish local governments and on the basis of local governments ranking published by daily newspaper “Rzeczpospolita”. The ranking list shows the local governments which care the most about development and quality of life. The established research period 2007–2013 will allow to answer the questions: did the leaders of ranking change and did the financial crisis in 2008–2009 have a significant impact on quality of life, and therefore on the efficiency of public services provision in the researched local governments? In the first part of this article the author considers the difficulties in defining the quality of life and public service efficiency. This chapter also presents research methods on the efficiency of public services provision used in the literature. The next part of the article includes the characteristic of local governments ranking list as a wide dataset, which characterizes efficiency of public services provision. The third part contains the analysis of the effectiveness of public services provision in the Polish local governments divided into three categories: cities with district rights, urban and rural municipalities, rural municipalities. In the last chapter of the article, a reader can be find the characteristic of the best fifteen cities with district rights in the public services provision and thus in developing the quality of life of residents.

Wybrane determinanty zmian dochodów podatkowych samorządu terytorialnego w Polsce w latach 1999–2014

Tax revenue is a very important, but also relatively variable part of Polish local governments’ revenue. During the years 1999–2014, tax revenue value was determined by a number of various factors, often with a contradictory impact. These factors include, above all, statutory changes in tax revenue share in the revenue of the state budget and the use of tax relief, exemptions and deferrals in both municipal and state taxes.

Local Government Reform as State Building: What the Polish Case Says About “Decentralization”

Since 1989, Poland has become one of the most decentralized states in Europe. Local government now control a third of all public expenditures. They have also delivered the goods modernizing the country’s infrastructure and restructuring its schools. This success cannot be attributed to widespread civic engagement because decentralization in Poland was clearly a “revolution from above”. Nor can it be attributed to the implementation of rules typically thought to enhance accountability in decentralized polities because the Polish local governments do not finance themselves and many of their responsibilities remain poorly defined. Instead, I argue that this success is due to the creation of meso-level institutions which integrated local governments into the regulatory structure of the state. Their design and operation suggests that the promise of decentralized governance lies less in “getting the rules right” than in constructing institutions that encourage their renegotiation and adjustment.

Aktywność polskich jednostek samorządu terytorialnego w zrzeszeniach międzynarodowych

main aim of this paper is to present the results of the study titled The effectiveness of cooperation between Polish local governments with partners from other countries, undertaken within international associations, prepared in September 2015 by the Malopolska School of Public Administration - Cracow University of Economics, commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As part of this study, in-depth individual interviews (IDI) were conducted with representatives of more than 50 local governments responsible for international cooperation. They supplied the characteristics of the activities undertaken by Polish local governments units in the area of cooperation in the framework of international associations. This study showed that, although according to respondents the activity of Polish local governments has increased in this regard in recent years, there are still some barriers to reaping full benefits of membership in international associations. Therefore, the developed recommendations aim at improving the effectiveness of this cooperation in the context of, among others, improvement of the quality of public tasks. (original abstract)

The Propensity to Tax Competition: The Case of Implementation Local Tax Policy by Polish Local Governments

The study is dedicated to identify the main factors determining the propensity of local authorities to compete for the access to the limited as well as mobile sources of local tax revenue. The success of such an activity should be discussed in relation to the stabilization of local budget revenues; hence it seems that the barriers of leaving tax jurisdiction could be better index to evaluate of the efficiency of local tax policy. The theoretical approach is based on the assumption that, if central government provides limitations of the right to improve local tax policy means (the scope of local tax jurisdiction), the local governments should focus on both the efficient acquiring the sources of tax revenues, and the stabilization of tax revenues in the future, in particular by the implementation of the barriers of leaving tax jurisdiction. The paper suggests studying a propensity to tax competition. The article formulates desideratum of the efficiency of spending on acquiring the sources of tax revenue, in particular, the need to identify the barriers to leave tax jurisdiction is suggested. The first and foremost way to build the barrier to leave tax jurisdiction could be reducing tax liabilities by local tax authorities, in particular by introducing local tax reliefs and local tax exemptions, as well as lowering local tax rates. Hence, the model of local authorities’ competition for local tax resources could be proposed. The empirical studies are dedicated to identify the actual propensity of Polish local government to execute the legal ability to impose tax policy instruments. The inquiry is based on comparing the fiscal consequences of implementing local tax policy within two groups of local authorities: small towns and countries (gminas) and medium-size towns and big cities (cities with powiat status). The period under investigation contains 14 fiscal years, started 2000 and finished in 2013. The method is based on the analysis of the structure and tendency of fiscal consequences of the decisions of local tax authorities.

Dotacje celowe z budżetu państwa na zadania samorządu terytorialnego a konstytucyjna zasada adekwatności

The rule of adequacy of financial resources to the local government’s responsibilities is one of the basic rule of local government finance, which was expressed in Polish Constitution and in the European Charter on Local Self Government. Because of the fact, that the system of own resources of Polish local governments was not reformed since 2004 – any amendment causes decrease of their transferable resources (grants, subsidies) should be regarded as the inconsistent with the rule of adequacy and therefore – unconstitutional. Such nature has the new 80% limit for the amount of the specific grant from the State Budget to local government own tasks, which was introduced by Article 128 of Public Finance Act. The paper presents argumentation proving the above thesis and also raises an increasing problem of inadequacy of subsidies for the central government’s task delegated to local authorities.

The spatial range of local governments: does geographical distance affect governance and public service?

Does space matter for local governments in the implementation of development policies? Geographical distance is believed to weaken the transmission of the socioeconomic development policy. Peripherally located local governments may be weaker than those centrally located local governments. Polish local governments from 1995–2007 were assessed based on performance indicators. The results show that the effective range of regional centres is limited to adjacent municipalities within a distance of 25 km and other local governments should be considered as having peripheral significance.