Privatization in the United States

Florencio Lopez-de-Salanes, Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny

Scholarly Articles from Harvard University Department of Economics

Abstract: In the United States, the two principal modes of producing local government services are inhouse provision by government employees and contracting out to private suppliers, also known as privatization. We examine empirically how United States counties choose their mode of providing services. The evidence indicates that state clean-governance laws and state restricting county spending encourage privatization, whereas strong public unions discourage it. The evidence is inconsistent with the view that efficiency considerations along govern the provision mode, and points to the important roles played by political patronage and taxpayer resistance to government spending in the privatization decision.

Date: 1997
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (127)

Published in RAND Journal of Economics

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Related works:
Journal Article: Privatization in the United States (1997)
Working Paper: Privatization in the United States (1995)
Working Paper: Privatization in the United States (1995)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hrv:faseco:30727606

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