This study explores the nature of “collaboration” risk in joint ventures and the factors that affect local development officials’ perceptions of these risks. Extant research on barriers to joint venture formation clearly indicates an important role for collaboration risk, but a systematic examination of the factors shaping local officials’ perceptions of this risk is lacking. The authors propose that their perceptions of the region’s norms regarding interlocal collaboration, the structure of the communication networks they have created with other local officials, and differences in the racial composition of their own cities are important factors shaping their perceptions of collaboration risk. The findings provide researchers with a basis for understanding the dimensions of collaboration risk in joint ventures and highlight the importance of the regional climate of cooperation among municipal leaders in shaping these perceptions. The two measures capturing the environment for collaboration in the region had the strongest link to the respondents’ perception of collaboration risk on joint ventures for economic development.

Place matters in human services. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) devolves spending to services, most often provided by nonprofit organizations. We argue that this devolution allows for people to "vote with their feet" (Ostrom, Tiebout, and Warren 1961: "The organization of government in metropolitan areas: A theoretical inquiry." American Political Science Review 55:831-42) in seeking jurisdictions where there will be more spending on human services. This paper considers the spatial patterns of human service expenditures, arguing that people of lower Socio-Economic Status (SES) are less likely to benefit from higher human service spending. We use a spatial Durbin regression to indicate the effects of SES on expenditures in a home county as well as the spillover effect to surrounding counties. The results show that while human service expenditures increase as African American and Renter populations increase in a home county, they also indicate that neighboring counties free-ride on the efforts of the home jurisdiction. Likewise, as a population ages, there is a very large free-riding effect. We conclude that the decentralized TANF policy regime allows for jurisdictions to specialize in human services.

Place matters, particularly when one considers human services. Proximity to individuals served is particularly important in those human services dedicated to people with low mobility or elevated fears of difference. Our project aims to explore the location decisions of job placement and training nonprofits at a national level. Relying on four separate data sets -990 data from the National Center of Charitable Statistics, federal contracting from the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, and American Community Survey data at the census tract level -we analyze nonprofit movement from 2008-2012 and assess the impact of federal contracts on the prevalence to move. This analysis finds that federal contracts played a powerful but double-edged role in redistributing job placement and training agencies. First, federal contracts seem to have helped nonprofits move to 'better' neighborhoods post-recession. Second, and somewhat contradictory, we also find that post-recession these same agencies were located in far worse neighborhoods than non-contracted counterparts that also moved during the recession.

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