MAQI and its Pillars

A short overview

The Municipal Administration Quality Index (MAQI) is a composite index for 7,574 out of 7,901 Italian municipalities, available for the period 2001-2021. We derive it as a mathematical combination (through the Adjusted Mazziotta Pareto Index [AMPI] methodology) of three different composing pillars:

Pillar I: Bureaucracy - quality/capacity

This pillar includes information about public employees in Italian municipalities. It is made up of four indicators:

Average years of education of employees
Turnover rate
Number of personnel per 1,000 inhabitants
Yearly average number of absences (days off)

Pillar II: Local politicians - quality

This pillar includes information about local political actors, such as the mayor (sindaco), the deputy mayor (vicesindaco), the councillors (assessori), and the president of the local council (presidente del consiglio comunale) in Italian municipalities. It is made up of three indicators:

Average years of education of politicians
Gender balance index
Proportion of white-collars

Pillar III: Local government - fiscal and economic performance

This pillar includes information about local governments' economic performance retrieved from municipal balance sheets. It is made up of four indicators:

Spending rigidity
Spending capacity
Collection capacity
Share of municipal budget for investments