Impact assessment of AGCM competition advocacy interventions in public services sectors

We are pleased to share a new study conducted by Lear for the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM), assessing the potential economic impact of its advocacy interventions in local public services.
The study develops an ex ante methodology to quantify the potential benefits of advocacy in terms of lower costs and improved service quality, focusing on urban waste management and local public transport.
For urban waste management, the econometric analysis suggests potentially significant benefits associated with the Authority’s interventions. The estimates point to an increase of 7.3–8.8 percentage points in separate waste collection rates and potential savings of around 20% in collection and transport costs for the authorities concerned. These estimates are the ex ante expected benefits and do not account for the administration compliance rates after the Authority’s interventions.

For local public transport, more limited data availability required a case-study approach. While the results cannot be generalised, the cases analysed point to potential inefficiencies in the use and configuration of services and in the overall management of expenditure by the local authorities targeted by AGCM’s interventions, while the evidence on service quality is more mixed.

Building on established approaches to competition policy impact assessment, including the OECD framework, the study provides AGCM with sector-specific metrics to assess the potential benefits of its advocacy interventions. The methodology can also be adapted to other sectors, providing a broader framework for assessing the impact of competition advocacy.

The Lear team was led by Paolo Buccirossi, Alessia Marrazzo and Rossella Mossucca, with support from Mohamed Lamine Dahmani and Silvio Sorbera.

The study published by AGCM is available here
To read the Press Release click here