This article presents the results of a systematic review of international studies on economic and quality effects of contracting out published in the period from 2000 to 2014. We conducted a comprehensive search of the literature and identified 49 relevant studies. There are three main findings of the systematic review: (1) cost savings documented in international contracting out literature have been decreasing over time; (2) cost savings have been much greater in technical services than in social services; and (3) economic effects have been twice as large in Anglo-Saxon countries compared with other countries. With regard to measuring the effect of contracting out on service quality, which is a vital component of any service delivery arrangement, very few studies assess this issue in a comprehensive manner. There is also a significant lack of studies that include measures of transaction costs, thereby making it difficult to evaluate the impact of contracting out on overall costeffectiveness of public service delivery. We conclude that generalization of effects from contracting out should be made with caution and are likely to depend, among other things, on the transaction costs characteristics of the service, the market situation and the institutional/regulatory setting.

Governments face a fundamental choice between in‐house production and contracting out for the delivery of services to citizens. This article examines the importance of ideology, fiscal pressure, and size for contracting out in technical and social services. The analysis builds on a panel data set covering municipal spending on services in all 98 Danish municipalities. The authors find that contracting out is shaped by ideology in social services but not in technical services, which indicates that social services are the contemporary ideological battlefield of privatization. The analysis further reveals that economically prosperous municipalities are more likely to contract out social services, whereas contracting out of technical services is not influenced by economic affluence. Finally, larger municipalities contract out more in technical services but less in social services, demonstrating that the size effect is contingent on the transaction cost characteristics of the service.

The past decades have witnessed an upsurge in governments' use of contracting out as a means of reforming and privatizing public service delivery. This development has to a large extent been driven by efficiency and cost-effectiveness concerns, but may also result in important changes in the working conditions and work environment for the personnel in public organizations. In this article, we present the findings from a systematic review of studies documenting the consequences of contracting out for employees. The review is based on 26 empirical studies published between 2000 and 2012. We find both positive and negative effects for employees documented in the literature, although with a predominance of negative effects, including reductions in the workforce and other changes in the workforce composition such as the replacement of experienced employees with younger workers, poorer working conditions, lower salaries, fewer benefits and reduced job satisfaction. We conclude that poorer conditions for the public service personnel are well documented as a short term consequence of contracting out, while more studies covering a longer time-span are needed in order to assess whether the predominantly negative effects are transitory or will persist over time.

Taking an institutional perspective, in this article we develop an index of the governmental support for public private partnership (PPP) -a 'PPP Governmental Support Index' (GSI) -which aims to measure the extent to which national governments provide an institutional framework that is either conducive or preventive for the introduction and diffusion of PPPs within transport infrastructure and other sectors. First, based on a substantive review of the literature, we define the elements of the PPP GSI, including the policy and political commitment regarding PPPs, the legal and regulatory framework, and the presence/absence of dedicated PPP-supporting arrangements. Second, we calculate the PPP GSI for 20 European countries, cluster them and compare similarities and differences in national governmental support of infrastructure PPPs. Third, we explore the potential link between national institutional index scores and infrastructure PPP activity in the 20 countries. Lastly, we discuss the potential and usefulness of the presented PPP GSI, as well as methodological limitations, and elaborate on how this index might be utilised to strengthen future comparative research on PPP in transport and other sectors.

Public‒private partnerships (PPPs) are often promoted as a means to lower the costs and increase the quality and value for money (VfM) of public construction and infrastructure projects. While the increasing capital stock of PPPs warrants evaluation of their performance there has until now been limited systematic assessment of PPP versus conventional public procurement. This article contributes to the literature by presenting the findings of a systematic review of empirical peer‐reviewed studies comparing the costs, quality, and/or VfM of infrastructure PPP projects with conventional public procurement. The international literature suggests that PPPs are on average more costly and provide approximately similar VfM as conventional procurement. The number of empirical evaluations is limited, however, and evidence on the quality of infrastructure facilities is particularly scarce. While infrastructure PPPs continue to proliferate, systematic assessment of their performance is warranted to assist policy‐makers in choosing the procurement method that offers best value for taxpayers, users and society.