IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/copoec/v6y1995i1p21-33.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Institutions, quality competition and public service provision: The case of public education

Author

Listed:
  • Samuel Staley
  • John Blair

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on integovernmental competition in two ways. First, the institutional setting within which public services are delivered is analyzed with respect to the impact on the quality of services provided. Previous studies have measured competition only in terms of governmental structure, ignoring the issue of service quality and the potential for differentiating local governmental jurisdictions along quality dimensions. Second, the outcome of competition is defined in terms of service quality. Previous studies generally have measured the outcome of competition by examining the fiscal effects of fragmentation and accountability through service costs or tax revenue impacts. School districts were used to empirically test quality competition. Student academic performance was modeled as a function of control variables and the degree of competition from neighboring school districts. Academic performance in public schools was positively associated with the performance of neighboring districts, although the effect was small. These findings, however, suggest that strategies to strengthen interjurisdictional competition may be useful in enhancing public service quality. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1995

Suggested Citation

  • Samuel Staley & John Blair, 1995. "Institutions, quality competition and public service provision: The case of public education," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 21-33, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:6:y:1995:i:1:p:21-33
    DOI: 10.1007/BF01298374
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF01298374
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF01298374?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Borland, Melvin V. & Howsen, Roy M, 1992. "Student academic achievement and the degree of market concentration in education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 31-39, March.
    2. Robert A. Margo, 1991. "Segregated Schools and the Mobility Hypothesis: A Model of Local Government Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 61-73.
    3. Michael Marlow, 1992. "Intergovernmental competition, voice and exit options and the design of fiscal structure," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 73-88, December.
    4. Nelson, Michael A, 1987. "Searching for Leviathan: Comment and Extension," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 198-204, March.
    5. Alice M. Rivlin, 1991. "Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: Strengthening the Economy by Rethinking the Role of Federal and State Governments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 3-14, Spring.
    6. Kenny, Lawrence W, 1982. "A Model of Optimal Plant Size with an Application to the Demand for Cognitive Achievement and for School Size," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(2), pages 240-254, April.
    7. Wagner, Richard E & Weber, Warren E, 1975. "Competition, Monopoly, and the Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 661-684, December.
    8. Marlow, Michael L, 1991. "Privatization and Government Size," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 68(1-3), pages 273-276, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Esteban Silva-Ochoa, 2009. "Institutions and the Provision of Local Services in Mexico," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 27(1), pages 141-158, February.
    2. Okuyama Naoko & Ishida Yu & Yamauchi Naoto, 2010. "Public Private Partnership between Local Governments and Nonprofits in Japan," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-23, November.
    3. Joshua C. Hall & Justin M. Ross, 2010. "Tiebout Competition, Yardstick Competition, and Tax Instrument Choice: Evidence from Ohio School Districts," Public Finance Review, , vol. 38(6), pages 710-737, November.
    4. Dean Stansel, 2012. "Competition, knowledge, and local government," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 243-253, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fox, William F. & Gurley, Tami, 2006. "Will consolidation improve sub-national governments ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3913, The World Bank.
    2. Jin, Jing & Zou, Heng-fu, 2002. "How does fiscal decentralization affect aggregate, national, and subnational government size?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 270-293, September.
    3. George Crowley & Russell Sobel, 2011. "Does fiscal decentralization constrain Leviathan? New evidence from local property tax competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 5-30, October.
    4. Zhu, Z. & Krug, B., 2005. "Is China a Leviathan?," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2004-103-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    5. Marlow, Michael L., 1999. "Spending, school structure, and public education quality. Evidence from California," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 89-106, February.
    6. Jürgen, Göbel, 2009. "How can the Power of Leviathans be Measured?," MPRA Paper 13663, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Dean Stansel, 2012. "Competition, knowledge, and local government," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 243-253, September.
    8. Gebhard Kirchgassner, 2002. "The effects of fiscal institutions on public finance: a survey of the empirical evidence," Chapters, in: Stanley L. Winer & Hirofumi Shibata (ed.), Political Economy and Public Finance, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Stehn, Jürgen, 1993. "Theorie des fiskalischen Föderalismus: Ein Referenzmaßstab zur Beurteilung der Beschlüsse von Maastricht," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 1898, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Landon, Stuart, 1999. "Education costs and institutional structure," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 327-345, June.
    11. Blair, John P. & Staley, Sam, 1995. "Quality competition and public schools: Further evidence," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 193-198, June.
    12. Stuart Landon, 1998. "Institutional Structure and Education Spending," Public Finance Review, , vol. 26(5), pages 411-446, September.
    13. Keith Dowding & Peter John & Stephen Biggs, 1994. "Tiebout : A Survey of the Empirical Literature," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 31(4-5), pages 767-797, May.
    14. Busemeyer, Marius R., 2007. "The Impact of Fiscal Decentralisation on Education and Other Types of Spending," MPIfG Discussion Paper 07/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    15. Barrow, Lisa & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 2004. "Using market valuation to assess public school spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1747-1769, August.
    16. Stephen Billings & Thomas Thibodeau, 2011. "Intrametropolitan Decentralization: Is Government Structure Capitalized in Residential Property Values?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 416-450, May.
    17. Turnbull Geoffrey K & Salvino Robert F., 2009. "Do Broader Eminent Domain Powers Increase Government Size?," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 785-806, December.
    18. David Card & Martin D. Dooley & A. Abigail Payne, 2010. "School Competition and Efficiency with Publicly Funded Catholic Schools," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 150-176, October.
    19. Melle Marco C., 2014. "Eine europäische Bemessungsgrundlage für die Körperschaftsteuer? Konzeption und ordnungsökonomische Analyse / Conceptual design and constitutional economics analysis of a European tax base for corpora," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 65(1), pages 133-156, January.
    20. D.P. Doessel & Abbas Valadkhani, 2002. "Public Finance and The Size of Government: A Literature Review and Econometric Results for Fiji," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 108, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    H7; I12;

    JEL classification:

    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:6:y:1995:i:1:p:21-33. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.