TY  - JOUR
AU  - Levin,Jonathan
AU  - Tadelis,Steven
TI  - Contracting for Government Services: Theory and Evidence from U.S. Cities
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13350
PY  - 2007
Y2  - August 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13350
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13350.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jonathan D. Levin
Stanford University
Department of Economics
579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA  94305-6072
Tel: 650/723-5962
E-Mail: jdlevin@stanford.edu

Steven Tadelis
UC Berkeley
Haas School of Business
Berkeley, CA 94720-1900
Tel: (510) 643-0546
Fax: (510) 642-4700
E-Mail: stadelis@haas.berkeley.edu
AB  - Local governments can provide services with their own employees or by contracting with private or public sector providers. We develop a model of this "make-or-buy" choice that highlights the trade-off between productive efficiency and the costs of contract administration. We construct a dataset of service provision choices by U.S. cities and identify a range of service and city characteristics as significant determinants of contracting decisions. Our analysis suggests an important role for economic efficiency concerns, as well as politics, in contracting for government services.
ER  -