Abstract:
In the last decades of the past century, growing criticism of the effects of government intervention in the economy led to a decline in the governments' role in the production of goods and services. In the area of local government and public service delivery, a wave of privatization was the main tool of reform, often through the contracting out of public service delivery. Because the results of privatization were much more modest than expected, other types of reforms have intensified in the first decades of this century. On the one hand, regarding the jurisdiction of the provider (amalgamation and intermunicipal cooperation); on the other, regarding the organization of production (corporatization and remunicipalization). After five decades of local government reform, a local machine-service hybridization is the most common approach to public service delivery.
Biography:
Born in Les Cases d'Alcanar in 1963. BA Economics at Universitat de Barcelona (UB), 1986. M.A. in Economics at University of Chicago, 1988. PhD in Economics at UB, 1993.
Currently Professor of Economics and Public Policy at UB, and Director of the Institute of Research on Applied Economics (IREA-UB). Cornell University-Fellow Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy (CPIP) since 2017. Honorary Senior Researcher Associate a University College London (UCL) since 2018. Former director of Observatory of Public Policies Analysis and Evaluation at UB (OAP-UB, until 2017-2022). ICREA-Academia researcher (2011-2015). Editor of Revista de Economía Aplicada (2014-2019) and Local Government Studies (2015-…).
His research focuses on public sector reform. Within this field, his main interests are local governments; local public services delivery; and transport infrastructures and mobility. In the past has been visiting professor -graduate teaching- at Cornell University and Princeton University. Has been visiting researcher at Cornell, Harvard, Paris I-Sorbonne, EUI-Firenze, KU Leuven, State University of Saint Petersburg, University College London, and Universidade de Macau.
Outside academia, between 1990 and 1993 served as advisor to the Spanish Ministers of Public Affairs, and of Public Works and Transportation. He was Member of the Spanish Parliament (2000-2004) and member of the Catalan Parliament (2015-2017).
In the last decades of the past century, growing criticism of the effects of government intervention in the economy led to a decline in the governments' role in the production of goods and services. In the area of local government and public service delivery, a wave of privatization was the main tool of reform, often through the contracting out of public service delivery. Because the results of privatization were much more modest than expected, other types of reforms have intensified in the first decades of this century. On the one hand, regarding the jurisdiction of the provider (amalgamation and intermunicipal cooperation); on the other, regarding the organization of production (corporatization and remunicipalization). After five decades of local government reform, a local machine-service hybridization is the most common approach to public service delivery.