The Municipal Administration Quality Index: The Italian Case

Municipal governments have become increasingly involved in public service provision, fund management, and administrative tasks. Despite their importance, studies of their relevance for local economic development have lacked a measure of their quality and capacity with extensive temporal and territorial coverage. We introduce the Municipal Administration Quality Index (MAQI), a novel composite index designed to assess the quality of local governments in Italy. Drawing on a newly compiled dataset covering 2001–2022, MAQI evaluates three key pillars: bureaucratic efficiency and capacity, the quality of local politicians, and the economic and fiscal performance of municipal administrations. Our findings reveal significant variations in administrative quality, with larger municipalities exhibiting higher scores due to fewer financial constraints and better-educated civil servants. We also identify distinct geographical patterns in institutional quality, challenging the conventional North–South divide.