Recent evidence on the savings from private production of local public services has become increasingly ambiguous. Here we specify and estimate a model to explain municipal costs for solid waste collection. As we find no effect of the mode of production on costs, we put forward two hypotheses. First, progressive concentration and decreases in bidding competition may come to outweigh gains from privatization. Second, the threat of privatization may have stimulated public unit managers to search for alternative reforms. The results suggest that both inter-municipal cooperation and recent privatization are associated with lower costs, while old privatization is not.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1995.
"Privatization in the United States,"
NBER Working Papers
5113, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)