Factors Important in Local Governments' Privatization Decisions
- 1 November 1995
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Urban Affairs Review
- Vol. 31 (2), 226-243
- https://doi.org/10.1177/107808749503100206
Abstract
In this article, the author builds a model of local governments' decisions to contract out residential solid waste disposal services and empirically tests this model by using a new dependent variable—proportion of expenditures on a service that goes to expenses other than payroll. The important factors affecting the contracting-out decision are scale economies, nonproperty taxes, difference in private- and public-sector unionization rates, and income and bond rating, in that order. Political and ideological factors appear to be less determinative than economic considerations.Keywords
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