Trends in Public and con T rac T ed Governmen T services : 2002-2007 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Municipal Service Provision Choices within a Metropolitan Area
Urban Affairs Review, 2005
The authors investigate the decision of municipal governments to out source the provision of public services during the 1980s and 1990s—a period of increased responsibility for municipalities. This study extends previous empirical work on outsourcing by distinguishing the type of outsourcing used (e.g., public, private, or other types of providers) and treating the out sourcing decision as a dynamic choice. Institutional characteristics and fiscal stress are found to play an important role in explaining service choices. Multinomial logistic regressions indicate that outsourcing was more common for poor cities than for wealthier ones, with the former often relying on government agencies and the latter opting for privatization. Throughout time, these choices are likely to reinforce interjurisdictional patterns of disparity in service quality and costs.
Economic Development Quarterly, 2005
During the past few decades, local governments have extended the scope of their activities in response to changing economic and political conditions. By and large, research on local governments neglects counties, now the fastest growing general-purpose governments. This article examines counties’roles in economic development and public service activities and reports on findings from a national survey of county governments with
Economic Influences on the Structure of Local Government in U.S. Metropolitan Areas
Journal of Urban Economics, 1998
There is a large degree of variation in the number of general-purpose local governments and school districts, per square mile and per person, among United States' metropolitan areas. Using data from 1982, this paper provides an empirical test of whether economic factors (especially variation in demand for local government services) partly account for these differences. The empirical findings show that after controlling for political, historic, and institutional factors, variations in the characteristics that affect demand for local government services do influence the number of local governments. This result is consistent with the hypothesis first put forth by Tiebout.
A New and Reinvigorated Research Agenda for U.S. Local Governments
State and Local Government Review
This essay offers a perspective on a new and reinvigorated research agenda for the study of U.S. local governments. It reports on the ideas and reflections of a set of local government scholars with different vantage points and varied substantive interests. Seven paramount themes or directions for a research agenda were identified, all of which contain numerous threads and thrusts: local government finance and economic development, local government management, intergovernmental relations, collaboration, public engagement, social equity, and institutional design. The essay offers some reasons for optimism about the future of U.S. local governments while also identifying cause for concern.