Privatization and Intermunicipal Contracting: The US Local Government Experience 1992–2007

Abstract

Local government scholars are giving increasing attention to market solutions to urban service delivery. Intermunicipal contracting and privatization are two market approaches to reaching economies of scale. Using national data on over one thousand municipalities from across the United States for the 1992-2007 period, we explore the diff erences between intermunicipal contracting and privatization and assess how the use of these market approaches relates to effi ciency, scale, and public engagement factors. Using probit models for each of four survey years (1992, 1997, 2002, 2007), we fi nd these market solutions are only partial responses to the problem of regional coordination and exhibit important diff erences with respect to place, management, and political concerns. These market solutions exhibit limited effi ciency, equity, and voice benefi ts.

Municipalities’ Choices of Service Delivery Modes: The Influence of Service, Political, Governance, and Financial Characteristics

“…The debate about privatization of municipal services such as garbage collection, cleaning, and parking management is shifting from an ideological debate to a more proper discussion of the institutional and economic factors that determine the mode of delivery (see also Hefetz et al 2012). This study confirms this for the Netherlands, which is important, as the current fiscal crisis puts local services under further pressure.…”

Does Cooperation Reduce Service Delivery Costs? Evidence from Residential Solid Waste Services

“…They empirically study cities' service delivery mode choice and level of interlocal cooperation across multiple services, and find that interlocal cooperation is shaped by the nature and the degree of transaction risks as well as by reciprocal exchange relationships. Finally, emphasize the role cooperation can play in services when competition is low, and Hefetz, Warner and Vigoda-Gadot (2012) find that cooperation is negatively related to population and more frequent in non-metrocore areas.…”

Making a Market out of a Welfare State: Swedish Local Politicians’ Perspectives on Elderly Care Marketisation

“…For instance, Schneider, Fink, and Tenbücken (2005) studied the changes in the shares held by the government of the dominant provider in three infrastructure sectors (telecommunications, electricity, and aviation sectors) between 1970 and 2000, and they found that partisan differences seen in the 1980s disappeared in the 1990s. Bel and Fageda (2007) held the view that the ideological orientation of the municipality had no apparent influence on the privatisation decision, which is an idea supported by several other authors, for instance, Boggio (2016);Fernandez, Ryu, and Brudney (2008); Hefetz, Warner, and Eran (2012); Wassenaar, Groot, and Gradus (2013).…”