The Determinants of Performance in Heritage Conservation
Preliminary Draft
Massimo Finocchiaro Castro
Deaprtment of Economics, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
&
DEMQ, Universita’ degli Studi di Catania, Italy
Ilde Rizzo
DEMQ, Universita’ degli Studi di Catania, Italy
1. Introduction
The literature on the economics of heritage has not extensively investigated the Heritage
Authorities performance and the determinants of such performance in the field of heritage
conservation. On the basis of a previous study (Finocchiaro Castro and Rizzo, 2005),
where we computed the efficiency scores of the Soprintendenze1 and found a relevant
degree of variability, our main aim is to explore, from both a theoretical and empirical
point of view, the determinants of such a variability, using economic and political
variables, to distinguish objective from discretionary causes. In section 2 a brief account
of the institutional features of conservation in Sicily will be offered; in section 3 the
empirical analysis will be presented and section 4 will conclude.
2. Institutional Features and Policy Tools in Sicilian Heritage Conservation
2.1 Sicily is an Italian region which enjoys full autonomy in the field of heritage
policy2. Political decisions about heritage policy are taken by the Regional government
1
The Soprintendenze are the Provincial Boards for Culture (Rizzo and Towse, 2002).
while their implementation is carried out by nine Heritage Soprintendenze, which are
responsible for any decision regarding heritage conservation.3 Their activity offers an
interesting case study both for understanding the features of Sicilian conservation policy
and for analysing the role of the regulator in the heritage field.
In heritage conservation, as in many other fields of public intervention, the
decision-making process can be described using the principal-agent paradigm and,
indeed, such a paradigm is highly suitable due to the asymmetries in information – those
connected to the artistic features of heritage – are relevant. As it is well known, in fact,
heritage is a vague and broad concept and, as a consequence, the activities of
Soprintendenze are wide-ranging and impinge upon private as well as public decisions. In
other research,4 it has been pointed out that Soprintendenze are run by experts, enjoy
great freedom not only because of the choice of instruments and their intensity but also
because the scope of their activity largely depends on their autonomous evaluation, given
that the concept of heritage is not well defined ex ante and is expanding through time.
For expository reasons, in what follows, on the grounds of Rizzo (2002) we
distinguish two types of Soprintendenze activities: passive conservation (PC) and active
conservation (AC).5 Such a distinction might be questioned, since PC and AC activities
may be interconnected in some cases6; while recognizing the significance of these links,
using such a distinction is useful because it recalls the conventional distinction between
public intervention tools (spending and regulation) and, thus, helps to understand the
complexity of conservation activities from an economic point of view. Moreover, the
distinction allows for empirical investigation by introducing the possibility of devising
3
In this paper “conservation” is used in a wider sense than usual. For instance, according to a widely
adopted definition (Lichfield, 1988, p. 26), interventions on built heritage that can be regarded as
conservation include: (1) prevention of deterioration, (2) conservation, (3) consolidation, (4) restoration, (5)
rehabilitation, (6) reproduction, and (7) reconstruction. Our definition includes all of the above plus
regulatory activity.
4
See Rizzo (2001, 2003).
5 Indeed, some Soprintendenze run museums, conserving artistic and/or archaeological collections of local
relevance. The difficulties encountered in the collection of the data referring to such an activity has not
allowed so far to include it into the analysis; the authors hope to be able to overcome such a problem by the
time the final version of the paper will be ready.
6
For instance, research and study activities underlying both can be considered interdependent; a discovery
resulting from an archaeological excavation might call for imposing constraints; at the same time,
expropriation is prerequisite to direct intervention.
indicators for each activity. Indeed, some Soprintendenza also run museums with
permanent collections consisting of items belonging to the area under the
Soprintendenza’s control and supervision. So far the collection of data has not been
completed because of bureaucratic problems and, therefore, this activity will not be
included in the analysis.
2.2. PC pertains to the activity of providing rules and monitoring their
implementation; i.e., the regulatory activity for both public and private heritage situated
in the territory of Soprintendenze. PC activity implies many different administrative acts,
enforceable on both private and public owners, such as:

Constraints (limitations on the use of heritage whose strength depends on the type
of heritage and includes items such as monumental constraints, prohibition of
alterations and land constraints

Demolition orders

Authorisations (consent for carrying out activities such as restoration and
rehabilitation of heritage)7

Permission to import and export
In some cases, such as authorizations, the above regulatory activity is in response to
the owner’s demand. In other cases, they can be spontaneous measures to constrain
owner’s activity (landscape constraints) or punishment for violations (for instance,
demolition orders).
Soprintendenze decisions are taken on the grounds of technical (given that their
staff is made up of experts) and administrative grounds and are subject to judicial review
only if those affected dispute the decision in court.
2.3. AC refers to direct intervention to provide conservation, such as spending
activity. AC involves a wide array of activities such as taking an inventory, performing
scientific research, training staff, updating, excavating, and restoring. In other words, AC
7
The strength of this act depends on the type of heritage and the constraint to which it is subject. For
instance, it is more severe if the constraint refers also to the interior of a listed building and less severe if
the building is only subject to restrictions on its appearance.
refers to activities put in practice by Soprintendenze via direct expenditure, mainly
through the hiring of external contractors to carry out physical operations and draw up
contracts.
The degree of autonomy enjoyed by Soprintendenze is very high at the planning
level while low at the operational level.8 No autonomy exists as far as the operation of
funds is concerned, given that any expenditure decision – even within the program – has
to be approved at the regional level. The only cases in which Soprintendenze enjoy
financial freedom is in so-called situations of high emergency.
The Soprintendenze’s expenditures are constrained by the availability of funds.
Diagnostic activity is usually not feasible on a large scale and, therefore, poor
information does exist on the health status of heritage and AC activity cannot be directed
where it is most needed, with the likely consequence of reducing the overall effectiveness
of the allocation of resources in this sector. The amount requested to the Regional
government usually exceeds the amount granted.9
2.4. Rizzo and Towse (2002) analyze the main features of the decision-making
process reaching the conclusion that the devolution of conservation to the Regional
government does not guarantee in itself that local preferences are adequately
represented.10 The lack of institutional forms for representing local opinion in the
decision-making process is likely to limit the beneficial impact of devolution.
Soprintendenze performance is not adequately monitored at the Regional level nor
evidence emerges that an incentive system exists (in terms of the size of budget or private
benefits for bureaucrats, such as career and salary) to induce Soprintendenze to fulfil
government objectives, however they are defined. As a consequence, conservation would
8
Once the yearly activity program submitted by each Soprintendenza is approved at the regional level, no
discretionary variation is allowed.
9
In the first stage of our research, we conducted interviews with senior bureaucrats in each of the nine
Soprintendenze bureaus and issued questionnaires. The latter sought information on output (both active and
passive), input (personnel), financial resources, and qualitative aspects such as relationships with local
governments and the role of procurement.
10
One possible explanation lies in the fact that the accountability of regional government in Sicily has been
very low: lack of real fiscal autonomy coupled with a proportional political system has so far implied a
very low degree of political accountability. The voting system changed recently; in 2001, for the first time,
the regional governor was elected directly by voters.
seem to be mainly driven by objectives and preferences of the specialists and experts
within the Soprintendenze.
Finocchiaro Castro and Rizzo (2005), using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)
technique to calculate the efficiency scores of heritage conservation activity, also showed
that in the period 1993-2000 Soprintendenze performance exhibited a high degree of
variability and that there was room for efficiency improvements. In PC activity, the
Soprintendenze seem to be relatively more efficient when their output is mainly demandinduced. Comparing AC and PC activity, however, the former (being the more
performance-visible), achieves relatively higher levels of efficiency than the latter. The
initiative of private heritage owners (the demand), thus, seems to affect the
Soprintendenze’s conservation activity significantly. Empirical evidence, therefore,
would suggest that the choice of the output mix (AC and PC) is mainly driven by
specialists according to their own objectives. Within such a framework, more attention is
likely to be paid to the demand of public intervention when private benefits and costs are
involved rather than when the benefits and costs of a public good are involved.
The analysis carried out with the DEA represents only a first step into the
empirical analysis of the way heritage conservation activity is carried on. A further step is
to try to understand what are the determinants of the variability of Soprintendenze
performance, whether it is affected by economic features, such as the scale, or by the
political factors characterizing the decision-making process.
3. The empirical analysis of the determinants of performance in heritage
conservation
3.1. So far in the literature, no attention has been paid to investigate the specific
issue of the determinants of Soprintendenze performance. There are studies on the
measurement of the performance of museums (Pignataro and Zanola, 2001; Pignataro
2002; Mairesse and Vanden Eeckaut, 2002; Paulus, 2003; Basso and Funari, 2004) but, to
the best of our knowledge, no research has been undertaken on the determinants of
museums and Soprintendenze performance. Indeed, Soprintendenze have been
investigated as far as the determinants of the allocation of funds from the Regional
government are concerned. The first empirical work trying to assess this issue is Guccio
and Mazza (2005a). This study analyses the statistical significance of several sociopolitical variables that may affect the allocations to the Soprintendenze. In a follow-up
paper, Guccio and Mazza (2005b) investigate whether the Assessore Regionale11 or the
Presidente della Regione12 being elected in a congressional district, which lies in the area
of competence of a specific Soprintendenza, implies higher allocations to that
Soprintendenza. This study show that the allocations of funds is used to reward specific
areas for the political support provided to the government (Cox and McCubbins, 1986;
Rodden and Wilkinson, 2004) but, at the same time, it may be affected by the relative
weight of the government members when deciding on the allocations (Baron and
Ferejohn, 1989).
In what follows, we try to give a tentative contribution to fill this gap in the
analysis of the determinants of conservation activity performance. For this purpose, we
will use different techniques, such as OLS with robust errors (White, 1980), and Tobit
regressions to estimate the weight of each explanatory variable. In fact, the use of
regression analysis to combine the non-parametric DEA method and parametric statistical
analysis is a well-know practice in the literature (Charnes et al, 1994; Lovell et al., 1994;
Grosskops, 1996; Cummins et al., 1999).
3.2 Our dependent variable refers to the DEA efficiency scores achieved by
Soprintendenze between 1993 and 2000 as computed by Finocchiaro Castro and Rizzo
(2005): the efficiency scores of each Soprintendenza were computed using personnel as
input and, the expenditure and the weighted administrative actions as outputs, according
with the definition of AC and PC13 offered above.
To investigate the determinants of the performance of Soprintendenze
conservation activity, we consider economic as well as political variables. We do not
include the stock of heritage as explanatory variable. From a theoretical point of view, the
11
Assessore Regionale is the Regional Officer for Culture (Rizzo and Towse 2002).
Presidente della Regione is the Regional Governor.
13
In measuring the PC output a distinction was drawn between two components of PC activity: demandinduced and spontaneous. The former refer to those actions taken because of the initiative of private
owners; the latter are those occurring as a direct result of the Soprintendenze’s proposals.
12
exclusion of heritage may appear surprising. However, the official available data on the
amounts of heritage under the supervision of each Soprintendenza are rather obsolete and
not complete. The only official publication available (Atlante dei Beni Culturali Siciliani,
1988) does not offer a complete coverage and, hence, those figures cannot account for all
the changes in the amounts of heritage controlled by the Soprintendenze in the last
decade. Hence, we believe that the inclusion of heritage could have badly affected the
results of our analysis.
As far as the economic variables are concerned, supply and demand variables can
be used. Looking at the supply, we try to test the hypothesis that performance is affected
by the features of the Soprintendenze production process, namely the scale of production.
The scale of production can be expressed using several variables. One indirect measure
can be given by the population served. Being the territory of each Soprintendenza
perfectly overlapping with the Province area, the population of each Province can be used
as proxy of the dimension of each Soprintendenza activity (POP). Indeed, such a variable
could also be a proxy for the size of the demand. Another variable can be the size of the
area, expressed in squared Kms (SIZE). Being heritage scattered in the Provincial
territory, the size of the area, other things being equal, is likely to affect negatively the
cost of producing both AC and PC activities.14 Moreover, the allocations might offer also
a variable representing the size of each Soprintendenza. This is not to say that greater
allocation necessarily implies greater heritage – since the role of socio-political variables
cannot be disregarded , as Guccio and Mazza (2005b) stress - but only that the greater the
size of the budget the greater the scope of the Soprintendenza activity. However, in our
analysis the use of such a variable is not advisable because the efficiency scores, i.e. the
dependent variable, were calculated using the expenditures that are closely related with
allocations.
Looking at the demand, it would be useful to use cultural spending per capita as a
measure of the demand for cultural activities. Such a variable would give also an
indication of the cultural environment and, therefore, might be able to represent the
interest of the local community for heritage conservation. So far, we have not found
reliable data of per capita cultural spending at provincial level for the entire period
14
Same conclusions are usually reached in the literature on the efficiency of public services.
covered by the analysis and, therefore, we need to look for alternative variables. Income
per capita can be used as a proxy for the demand of conservation (INC), on the
assumption that heritage is a luxury good. Income per capita is also a proxy for the socioeconomic status of the population, such as for instance, education which, in turns,
positively affects the demand for heritage. Table 1 and Table 2 summarize the main
statistics for each of those variables.
Table 1 – Statistics of socio-economic variables in the period 1993-2000
Soprintendenze
Agrigento
Caltanissetta
Catania
Enna
Messina
Palermo
Ragusa
Siracusa
Trapani
Regional Level
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Average
St.Dev.
Efficiency
scores
0.66
0.21
0.55
0.22
0.59
0.24
0.51
0.16
0.74
0.11
0.75
0.22
0.86
0.19
0.71
0.21
0.53
0.11
0.66
0.21
Allocations*
10665.8
2326.52
5720.24
801.22
7464.12
2306.01
4704.41
1909.3
11929.85
3111.6
23339.75
8542.86
12625.1
4872.33
4544.13
1217.19
9095.97
3894.42
10009.93
6656.06
Per-capita Households
Income*
8.25
0.79
8.58
0.82
9.83
0.65
9.17
0.70
11.52
1.01
10.64
0.62
11.58
0.79
9.04
3.25
9.38
0.89
9.78
1.70
Source: Our computation of data from Istituto Tagliacarne, ISTAT and Assessorato Regionale ai Beni Culturali
* Values measured in thousands of eurolire at 1995 constant price.
Table 2 - Demographical and Territorial Variables
Soprintendenze
Size*
Population**
Agrigento
Caltanissetta
Catania
Enna
Messina
Palermo
Ragusa
Siracusa
Trapani
Regional Level
3042
2124
3553
2561
3247
4992
1614
2108
2460
25701
435
257
972
171
614
1149
273
375
399
516
Source: Our computation of data from ISTAT
* Values measured in squared Kms.
** Values measured in thousands.
The above variables account for economic determinants deriving from demand and
supply sides. A less clear-cut role is played by another variable, the seniority of
Soprintendenti15 (SEN), i.e. the length of appointment of Soprintendenti measured with
the number of months. The most straightforward interpretation of the impact of such a
variable is that a long tenure implies more experience and, therefore, a positive effect on
efficiency. At the same time, adopting a public choice interpretation, a long tenure would
imply a more powerful bureaucrat, who would have a greater bargaining power to extract
resources from the political decision-maker and would be less accountable. Therefore, a
likely negative impact on efficiency might be expected.
In addition, to capture the role of experts, as described in the literature, another variable
representing the expertise of each Soprintendente might be used especially to investigate
whether a change in expertise might affect the efficiency scores. In the analysis, a dummy
to control for the different field of specialization when a new Soprintendente is appointed
(EXPT). Finally, as far as the political determinants are concerned, we use the same
variables adopted by Guccio and Mazza (2005b), i.e. a dummy to control for the
costituency in which the Presidente della Regione was elected (PR) and a dummy to
extend the same control to the Assessore Regionale (AS). However, it should be stressed
that here the interpretation is different, since the coincidence of Presidente della Regione
and Assessore Regionale would imply a stronger incentive of these “principals” to
monitor their “agents”, i.e. the Soprintendente, in the constituency where they have been
elected. Therefore, we might expect a positive impact of these two dummies on the
efficiency scores.
3.3. In order to identify the determinants of the performance of heritage conservation in
Sicily, we try to test whether the above mentioned variables representing demand, supply
and political factors are influential in affecting the efficiency scores obtained in
15
Soprintendente is the Provincial Director for Culture (Rizzo and Towse, 2002).
Finocchiaro Castro and Rizzo (2005). In the empirical analysis we add also a time
variable to capture the effect of time on the explanatory power of independent variables.
Our data refer to the conservation activity of the nine Sicilian Soprintendenze
across 8 years of observation (1993-2000). The estimated models combine time series
and cross-sectional data gathering a total of 72 observations. We choose the linear model
as functional form. The empirical analysis is carried out applying different estimation
methods to our model. In particular we estimate equation (1) using an a) OLS regression
with robust standard errors (White, 1980), and b) Tobit regression.
We tested different models using alternative combinations of the above mentioned
variables. Table 3 describes the results of the regressions that better describe the complex
activity of Heritage conservation run by the Soprintendenze. In the two regressions, the
variables INC and SEN are both significant and with positive sign. This would suggest
that the demand exerts a positive effect on efficiency and this somehow confirms the
suggestions offered by Finocchiaro and Rizzo (2005) in the interpretation of the DEA
analysis. The positive sign of seniority would suggest that, indeed, experience counts and
affects efficiency in a positive way. The public choice interpretation does not seem to get
support from the analysis. Regarding the supply variables, the population16 and the size of
each province are not significant. A possible explanation for the lack of significance of
supply variables might be due to the features of the dependent variables, since the effect
of the scale of production is already taken into account in the DEA efficiency scores. We
also tested for allocations which turned up to be highly significant and with positive sign;
however, the above mentioned close relation between allocations and expenditures did
suggest not to include such a variable in the estimated models. Unlike Guccio and Mazza
(2005b) results, the political variables showed to be not significant, though with the
expected signs, probably because their effect in this analysis is less straightforward.
16
The use of such a variable might suggest the introduction of a dummy variable to control for the
Soprintendenza of Palermo, since it may represent an outlier because of the size of its population when
compared with the other provinces. However, we found no relevant changes in the results of the empirical
analysis when we introduced the already mentioned dummy and, therefore, we did not include it in the
estimated model.
Table 3 – The estimated model
Explanatory
Variables
CONSTANT
TREND
POP
INC
SEN
PR
EXPT
SIZE
AS
R2
Pseudo R2
N
OLS with rse
Tobit
0.159
(0.165)
0.003
(0.011)
0.00008
(0.0001)
0.045***
(0.011)
0.0006*
(0.0003)
0.031
(0.064)
-0.025
(0.064)
-0.00001
(0.00007)
0.109
(0.074)
0.135
(0.201)
0.0008
(0.011)
0.0001
(0.0001)
0.048***
(0.015)
0.0007**
(0.0003)
0.0507
(0.082)
-0.021
(0.083)
-0.00002
(0.00006)
0.111
(0.076)
0.27
72
1.4514
72
The symbol * indicates that the coefficient is significant at the 10% level.
The symbol ** indicates that the coefficient is significant at the 5% level.
The symbol *** indicates that the coefficient is significant at the 1% level.
The standard errors are robust (White, 1980).
Hence, the efficiency scores of the Sicilian Soprintendenze seem to be affected by
the demand and the “quality” of supply, as expressed by the seniority.
However, the present work has to be considered as a first step towards a more
complete and accurate analysis of the determinants of Soprintendenze’s performance in
heritage conservation activity and, therefore, caution is suggested in evaluating our
conclusions.
4. Concluding Remarks
This paper can be considered as a first step into the analysis of the determinants of
performance in Heritage conservation activity, which has not received so far attention in
the literature. Our investigation has a methodological interest since, to the best of our
knowledge, a two steps analysis as the one proposed here has not been applied in the
heritage sector. However, it has to be noted that the inadequacy of the currently available
data is a major constraint for the development of empirical analysis. On this basis, we
find that the performance of Sicilian Soprintendenze, measured by the efficiency scores
obtained through the DEA analysis, is affected by both demand and “quality” of supply
factors, as expressed by the seniority of Soprintendenti.
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