Privatisation, contracting-out and inter-municipal cooperation: new developments in local public service delivery

We briefly review recent advances in the empirical analysis of the privatisation and inter-municipal cooperation of local public services and discuss the potential of these studies. The core issues examined include the identification of factors driving delivery choices and the effects of privatisation and cooperation on service provisions. In addition to reporting the specific empirical findings of each study, we highlight the innovative methodologies that they each adopt. Finally, we outline a number of potential avenues for further research

Re-municipalization of public services: trend or hype?

Re-municipalization is part of a broader set of reverse privatization reforms. We argue the term re-municipalization lacks conceptual clarity, confusing municipal level reversals from national ones, new service delivery from reversals, and mixed market positions from full public control. This conceptual confusion makes measurement of re-municipalization difficult. While more case studies are being discovered, quantitative time series studies do not show remunicipalization is increasing. Much case study based research argues remunicipalization is politically transformative, but quantitative research generally finds re-municipalization to be part of a pragmatic market management process, a position confirmed by the papers in this special issue

Collusion in the Dutch waste collection market

In this paper we analyse whether collusion exists in the Dutch waste collection market, which shows a high degree of concentration. Although scale effects might be in accordance with this market outcome, the question is whether this concentration is in fact a result of fair competition. Using data for (nearly) all Dutch municipalities we estimate whether collusion exists and what the impact is on tariffs for waste collection. The results indicate that high concentration increases prices and therefore (partly) offsets the advantage of contracting out. The presence of competing public firms might be essential to ensure more and fair competition.Waste collection, collusion, public-private firms, contracting out

Subthreshold PTSD and PTSD in a prospective‐longitudinal cohort of military personnel: Potential targets for preventive interventions

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146501/1/da22819_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146501/2/da22819.pd

Competition and educational quality: evidence from the Netherlands

Little evidence is available for the effect of competition on educational quality as only a few countries allow large-scale competition. In the Netherlands, free parental choice has been present since the beginning of the twentieth century and can be characterized as a full voucher program with 100 % funding. Based on micro panel data for the Netherlands, we show that there is a relation between competition and educational outcomes in secondary education, but that it is often negative and small, sometimes insignificant but never positive. This effect is larger for small and medium-sized schools and for schools that do not have a Protestant or Catholic denomination