Descripció
This chapter explores the economic, political, and organisational effects of external agentification in the municipal waste service in four countries: Poland, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain (Catalonia). Using Van Thiel´s typology of agentification, it turns out that the four countries have all followed trajectories of external agentification, but at a different pace, in different periods, and in varying degrees. Furthermore, an analysis of secondary data indicates mixed effects of external agentification. Public law-based inter-municipal companies (type 2) and private law based municipal-owned limited companies (type 3) seem to have some positive economic effects, although transaction costs may increase. The political effects are clearly negative in the sense that accountability becomes more problematic. Due to the lack of data, the findings on organisational effects are inconclusive.
