US prison health care has recently been in the news and in the courts. A particular issue is whether prisons should contract out for health care. Contracting out has been growing over the past few decades. The stated motivation for this change ranges from a desire to improve the prison healthcare system, sometimes in response to a court mandate, to a desire to reduce costs. This study is a firs...

Can governments contract out school management at scale? In 2016 the Government of Punjab transferred over 4,000 failing primary schools to private operators. Schools remained free students. Private operators received a government subsidy per enrolled student less than half per-student spending in schools. This paper evaluates effects on performance converted Comparing early converters later co...

Municipalities may have various motives for decisions on the mode of their task execution. Empirical studies – based on both public choice and transaction costs theory have not yet provided a fully comprehensive explanation for municipal contracting out decisions. Therefore, we held interviews with Dutch municipal managers about the motives for the actual mode of service provision. This study p...