The health outcomes reflect the performance of countries in terms of the variables that public policies are aimed at. But how do citizens perceive the performance of the health care sector? And is this perception more positive in countries with relatively more favourable outcome scores? To address these questions, we plot an indicator of the perceived quality of health services from the European Quality of Life Survey (Eurofound 2012) against a composite index of health outcomes. We find that citizens of countries that perform better in terms of health outcomes also perceive the quality of the health care sector as better.
3 Social safety
Comparing crime rates across countries (Chapter 4) is extremely challeng-ing. Internationally standardised victim surveys are typically the most reliable source of comparable information, but unfortunately these are not available for recent years. As a consequence, the only international data available to us are police registrations (recorded crime). As discussed in detail in Chapter 4, the comparability of nationally recorded crime rates is subject to various measurement problems. Probably the most important of these derives from the vast cross-country differences in reporting by citi-zens and registration by the police, which lead to artificial differences in recorded crime rates. High levels of recorded crime may reflect high levels of actual crime (unfavourable), but could equally well indicate high reporting and registration rates (favourable). This ‘safety paradox’ is explained fur-ther in Chapter 4.
With this caveat in mind, we briefly report our findings for the social safety outcome index, which is based on a weighted average of recorded serious crimes (violence, robbery, burglary, motor vehicle theft and drugs offenc-es). Among European regions, Central and Eastern Europe showed by far the fewest recorded serious crimes in 2012 on average. Northern European and Western European countries had the most recorded crimes, with the countries in Southern Europe in the middle.
To what extent did outcomes change between 1995 and 2012? The weight-ed level of total recordweight-ed crime (including both serious and less serious crimes) remained fairly constant in most countries over this period.
Exceptions include Bulgaria, Estonia and the United Kingdom, which witnessed a sharp reduction in crime, and Slovenia, Portugal and Sweden, which experienced a substantial increase.
With respect to inputs, we observe that countries spent between 1 and 2.5 percent of their gdp on public order and safety in 2012. On average, Northern European countries spent the least, while Central and Eastern European countries spent the most. In general, most of this spending was allocated to the police (65 percent), followed by the courts (23 percent) and prisons (12 percent). No association was found between national recorded crime rates and the level of expenditure.
With respect to outputs, we find that countries with a higher probability of arresting offenders have lower recorded serious crime rates. The probabil-ity that offenders will actually be punished once arrested does not seem to make a difference. However, if the chances are higher that this punish-ment will involve imprisonpunish-ment, the nationally recorded crime rate again tends to be lower. Impact evaluations are positive about the deterrent effect of the probability of arrest, especially where the deterrent is visible, but less so about the value of imprisonment itself. Detention serves to
restore the legal order (retribution), but can also serve as an instrument for prevention. Three transmission mechanisms can be distinguished: (i) the direct incapacitating effect of temporarily stopping convicts from offending;
(ii) the deterrence of potential perpetrators who have not yet offended; and (iii) reducing recidivism by prisoners. Existing evidence suggests that (i) and (ii) are indeed effective in suppressing crime, while the effectiveness of (iii) is highly doubtful. Detention alone does not reduce recidivism and may even be counterproductive. By contrast, detention combined with specific inter-ventions, such as cognitive behavioural therapy or social learning or skills training, may reduce recidivism.
A final finding is that citizens of countries with higher levels of recorded seri-ous crime are more likely to trust their police and their legal system. In our view, this seemingly counterintuitive result favours the argument that high levels of recorded crime may primarily indicate a high national tendency to report and register offences rather than high actual crime rates.
4 Housing
For housing (Chapter 5) our outcome index combines indicators that capture (i) the quality of dwellings; (ii) the extent to which dwellings provide suf-ficient space; and (iii) the affordability of dwellings. We find that Northern Europe outperformed the other three European regions on average in 2012, although the difference compared with Western Europe was not large.
Southern Europe, and especially Central and Eastern Europe, achieved substantially lower scores and also showed larger differences between coun-tries. At the level of individual countries, the performance was strongest in Sweden, Norway, Ireland and Luxembourg, and weakest in Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania, Portugal and Lithuania.
On average, Northern and Western Europe also recorded the highest scores on the three separate dimensions of the outcome index: quality, sufficient space and affordability. This holds not just for 2012, but also for 2007. We also observe that outcome scores improved for the most part between 2007 and 2012, and that average differences between European regions diminished.
With respect to housing inputs, governments spent on average between 0.5 and 3.0 percent of gdp on housing (2007-2011). France and Cyprus spent the most, Estonia and Lithuania the least.
As outputs we use the separate indicators of quality, sufficient space and affordability. We observe that the share of households without housing prob-lems was smallest in Central and Eastern Europe, mainly due to a relatively high incidence of insufficient space, lack of bath or toilet, and problems keeping the dwelling warm or cool. Southern European countries faced a relatively large number of problems of quality and affordability, but few
space problems. Western Europe scored around the average on quality but experienced few space and affordability problems. Finally, Northern Europe performed best on quality and affordability and close to the best on having sufficient space.
Furthermore, we find that government expenditure on housing (input) is not correlated with housing outcomes. By contrast, average household income is strongly and positively associated with housing outcomes.
Finally, we find that citizens of countries which perform better in terms of housing outcomes also perceive the quality of social and municipal hous-ing as better.
5 Social security
For social security (Chapter 6), our outcome index includes poverty, non- employment of young people, long-term unemployment and pension replacement rates for average male earners.4 Overall, we find that the countries in Northern Europe obtained the highest average scores for social security, followed by the countries in Western Europe. The countries in Southern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe obtained the lowest scores. At the level of individual countries, outcomes were most favourable in the Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg and Denmark, and least favoura-ble in Greece, Spain and Romania.
Over recent years, no clear overall increase or decrease is observed in the social security outcome indicators. For poverty, around half the countries in Western Europe, Northern Europe and Southern Europe experienced an increase over the period 2005-2011, and the other half a decrease.
By contrast, most countries in Central and Eastern Europe witnessed sharp reductions in poverty. The trend over time is also mixed for non-employ-ment in youth. Between 2005 and 2013, substantial decreases occurred in Germany and the Czech Republic, while large increases were found in Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece. Looking at long-term unemploy-ment, most countries have seen an increase in recent years. This increase was most marked in some Southern European and Central and Eastern European countries, and in Ireland. Increases in youth non-employment and long-term unemployment partly reflect the impact of the financial crisis, as countries that suffered most from the crisis also saw the largest increases.
With respect to social security inputs, we observe that public spending on social security in 2012 was highest in Northern Europe (22 percent of gdp on average), followed by Western Europe (19 percent), Southern Europe (18 percent) and Central and Eastern Europe (14 percent). Spending was lowest in Eastern Asia (10 percent), Northern America (11 percent)
4
The pension replacement rate corresponds to earnings from pensions relative to earnings when working.
5
We should note that there are issues with the cross-country comparability of these levels of expen-diture, as data for non-European countries originate from different sources and relate to 2011 instead of 2012.
6
A coverage of 100 percent does not occur because unemployment benefit schemes typically cover a limited time period, are mostly restricted to employees in formal employment, and do not cover new entrants to the labour market.
and Oceania (12 percent).5 At the level of individual countries, Denmark, Finland and France spent most, while Korea, Canada, the United States and Latvia spent the least.
To obtain a more complete picture of social security inputs, we need to look at the extent to which public spending is supplemented by private spending. We observe that, in 2011, around 15 percent of social spending on average was private. At the level of individual countries, this percentage ranged from close to zero in Estonia and Poland to almost 50 percent in the United States.
With respect to social security outputs, we consider (i) the percentage of pension beneficiaries within the population above retirement age, i.e. the
‘pension coverage’; and (ii) the percentage of unemployed people in receipt of unemployment benefit. We find that in 2010 almost all men who reached the retirement age received a pension. In several countries, the pension coverage among women was lower than among men, presumably because historically they have most often been the ones who interrupt their careers to look after others. We also observe that the coverage of unemployment benefits in the period 2011-2013 was highest on average in Western Europe.
In many of these countries, more than 60 percent of unemployed persons received benefits. In Austria, Germany, Malta, Ireland, and Belgium, it was no less than 80 percent or more.6
Finally, we find no significant correlation between public spending on social security as a percentage of gdp and the social security outcome index.
6 Public administration
For public administration (Chapter 7), our outcome index captures ‘good governance’, which includes the six elements ‘voice and accountability’,
‘control of corruption’, ‘rule of law’, ‘government effectiveness’, ‘political stability and absence of violence’ and ‘regulatory quality’. Northern Europe scores especially well on good governance in 2013, followed by Oceania, Western Europe, Northern America and Eastern Asia. Central and Eastern Europe and Southern Europe obtained the lowest scores for the public administration outcome index. The best-scoring countries were Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, and Denmark, while the worst-scoring countries were Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.
Between 1996 and 2013, public administration performance declined in Southern Europe (except for Malta), Western Europe (except for Switzerland) and Northern America. In contrast, Central and Eastern Europe (except for Hungary and Slovenia) along with Eastern Asia expe-rienced an increase in good governance scores. Northern Europe and
Oceania had stable high scores. Since 1996, Greece, Portugal and Italy have shown the largest decreases, while Croatia, Latvia and Estonia have seen the largest increases in the public administration outcome index.
As regards public administration inputs, we observe that government expenditure on public administration was roughly between 6 and 18 per-cent of gdp on average in Europe. Most Southern European countries had relatively high levels of expenditure, but no clear regional pattern could be discerned. The biggest spenders were Cyprus, Greece, Denmark, Portugal, Poland and Italy (all above 10% of gdp). The lowest spenders were Norway, Hungary, Estonia and Bulgaria (all around 6% of gdp). Another indicator for inputs is the share of general government personnel in the total labour force. This was highest in Norway, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Slovak Republic and Sweden (all above 30%), and lowest in New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and Australia (all 10 to 15 percent).
For public administration, output is an elusive concept. Therefore, system characteristics related to the civil service task of public administration are measured and correlated with the outcome index. These characteristics are
‘economic performance’, ‘freedom of the press’, ‘structure of civil service salaries’, ‘quality of the public administration’, ‘spending on public admin-istration and tax adminadmin-istration’, ‘level of decentralisation’, ‘intensity of ict expenditure’ and ‘traditional versus modern bureaucracy’. Economic performance, professionalism (as a dimension of the quality of the public administration), freedom of the press, degree of decentralization and intensity of ict expenditure were significantly positively correlated with the public administration outcome index. The share of the tax administra-tion, on the other hand, was significantly negatively correlated with the outcome index.
As regards the input indicators, no clear correlation with the outcome index was found, either for governmental spending on public admin-istration as a percentage of gdp or for the share of general government personnel in the total labour force.
Finally, we find that citizens of countries that perform better in terms of public administration outcomes also put more trust in the civil service.
7 Three other public sectors
Chapter 8 contains a preliminary description of the three remaining public sectors: 1) economic affairs and infrastructure; 2) environmental protec-tion and 3) sport, culture and participaprotec-tion. In particular, we focus on the most recent available data and present data for outcomes and inputs only.
7
We do not use outcomes for ‘participation’ due to limited data availability and issues of cross-country comparability.