Rural—Urban Differences in Privatization: Limits to the Competitive State

Mildred Warner and Amir Hefetz

Environment and Planning C, 2003, vol. 21, issue 5, 703-718

Abstract: Despite two decades of experience with privatization, US local government use of contracting in public service delivery remains relatively flat. Market approaches to public goods provision emphasize the competitive state, and attribute limited degree of privatization to bureaucratic resistance. Rural development theory emphasizes the uneven impact of market solutions in rural communities. Using national data on US local government service delivery from 1992 and 1997, we analyze differences in local government service-delivery patterns by metropolitan status. Discriminant analysis suggested that structural features of markets are more important than the managerial capacity of government leaders in explaining lower rates of privatization among rural governments. These structural constraints limit the applicability of competitive approaches to local government service delivery. Our results suggest that cooperation, as an alternative to privatization at the local level and as a source of redistributive aid at the state level, may provide a more equitable alternative for disadvantaged rural communities.

Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c008r (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:21:y:2003:i:5:p:703-718

DOI: 10.1068/c008r

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning C
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().