@misc{10481/85569,
year = {2023},
month = {9},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/10481/85569},
abstract = {How does contracting out affect service performance? Evidence to date is mixed. We argue that this is partially due to prior studies focusing
often on whether—not how—services are contracted. Yet, how services are contracted matters. In particular, we argue that whether users pay
user fees for services to contractors affects efficiency. Where they do, contractor revenue depends on user satisfaction and contractors face
incentives to provide quality services to users to retain revenue. Where, by contrast, governments fund services, information asymmetry about
the quality of services users receive allows contractors to shirk quality. The assertion is substantiated by empirical evidence derived from a
comprehensive analysis of conditional efficiency within the water supply services across 2,111 municipalities in Spain, employing a two-stage
conditional order-m data panel estimation. Our results show that contracting out where users pay service fees and thus have incentives to hold
contractors accountable outperforms contracting out without user fees in quality-adjusted service provision},
organization = {Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca, Grant/
Award Number: SGR Program},
organization = {2017-SGR-1556},
organization = {Junta de
Andalucía, Proyectos I+D+I a agentes del Sistema Andaluz
del Conocimiento (PAIDI 2020) Grant Number: P20.00605},
organization = {Universidad de Granada, Grant Number: B-SEJ-476-UGR20},
organization = {Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación},
organization = {Grant Number:
PID2021-128713OB-I00},
organization = {COLLABQUAL PID2020-
116103GB-I00/},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
title = {Assessing the Effects of User Accountability in Contracting Out},
doi = {10.1093/jopart/muad020},
author = {Esteve, Marc and Garrido Rodríguez, Juan Carlos},
}