TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Elinder, Mikael
AU  - Jordahl, Henrik
        TI  - Political Preferences and Public Sector Outsourcing
        PY  - 2012/Jun/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 6632
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp6632
        AB  - Given the intensive and ideologically charged debate over the use of private contractors for publicly funded services, it is somewhat surprising that many social scientists have preferred to explain government outsourcing by the pursuit of economic efficiency. Starting out from different theories, we investigate political explanations of government outsourcing using a Swedish data set in which outsourcing varies between municipalities and over time, as well as between services. Our identification strategy focuses on two services with similar contracting problems and local market conditions: preschools and primary schools. We study a period in which Swedish municipalities had full discretion in the provision of preschools, while their influence on the private provision of primary education was limited by a national voucher system. The comparison of preschools with primary schools in a difference-in-differences model suggests that the political color of the ruling majority influences outsourcing, which is consistent with the Citizen Candidate model of representative democracy.
        KW  - contracting out
KW  - public provision
KW  - ideology
KW  - outsourcing
KW  - child care
KW  - education
        ER  -