The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Andreas Bergh. Photo.

Andreas Bergh

Senior lecturer

Andreas Bergh. Photo.

Municipally owned corporations in Sweden : A cautionary tale

Author

  • Andreas Bergh
  • Gissur Erlingsson

Summary, in English

IMPACT: Municipally owned corporations (MOCs) exist across the globe and have become increasingly common. They are motivated by the need for flexibility, a desire to cut costs and to increase efficiency. This article summarizes Swedish experiences with MOCs. It shows that the stated motivations are not necessarily wrong, but that relying heavily on MOCs may have unintended and adverse side-effects. Such side-effects include blurring the role of local politicians, increasing corruption risks and giving rise to complex organizational structures within local governments. Ultimately, transparency and democratic accountability may suffer because of an excessive reliance on MOCs. In particular, councillors, mayors and MOC chief executive officers will benefit from reading these results, and ask themselves what kind of MOCs their municipality should operate, how many MOCs are appropriate to run, and also how members of MOC boards need to be educated.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2023

Language

English

Publication/Series

Public Money and Management

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • Accountability
  • corruption
  • delegation
  • local government
  • municipally owned corporations
  • New Public Management
  • principal–agent problems
  • Sweden

Status

Inpress

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0954-0962