A Factor Analysis of the Public Sector Performance. Significant Differences between Old and New EU Countries

This paper revisits public sector performance analysis for EU states during 1995-2014 using principal component analysis technique. The following approaches are considered: (i) analysis of public sector performance and (ii) identification of the most important subsector. In order to compare the EU countries public sector performance, we considered seven subsectors, namely, administration, health, education, infrastructure, income distribution, economic stability and economic performance. Results emphasize that administration subsector has a major contribution in achieving public sector performance. The results indicate that EU old countries have the best competitive potential for prospectively furthering sustainable development. Only four EU states register a discordant behavior. Greece and Italy represent old EU states that aren't performant and Malta and Cyprus represent the new EU states that are performant. These findings are relevant to national policy sustainable development agendas, at different levels, considering development as one of the most important issue for policy-makers and public managers.