Public service as an indicator of competitiveness

The practice of the integrated organisation of public services is partly the result of budgetary constraints. In the course of financial and task fulfilment planning, unequal public service accessibility is an issue in many cases. It mostly affects disadvantaged regions and penalizes the concerned resident population by causing adverse selection with respect to wellbeing and living conditions. In this study, the author analyses the relationship between public service practices and economic competitiveness at the county level for Hungarian regions. The study also examines the relationship between the provision of consumable and non-consumable public goods and economic competitiveness. Using a latent variable model, the author presents the relationship between certain public services and economic indicators with respect to the examined territorial units. Subsequently, following the subdivision of the examined territorial units into lower-level administrative units, the author draws a parallel between the endogenous resources and public services in each territorial unit, and tests the hypotheses with a two-sample t-test on cross-sectional data.