IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v20y1983i1p1-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Versus Private Provision of Governmental Services: The Case of Danish Fire Protection Services

Author

Listed:
  • Ole P. Kristensen

    (Institute of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark)

Abstract

Comparisons of the costs of private and public production of the same service are of interest because governmental services do not have to be produced by public institutions. The production may be contracted out to private companies. The paper presents an empirical analysis of costs of private and public provision of fire protection in Denmark. Strict state regulation of municipal fire protection services makes the costs of public and private production more comparable than is often the case. The findings show substantial cost differences in favour of private production. In the discussion, this difference is primarily attributed to economies of scale and competition from alternative sources of supply related to private production of fire protection services.

Suggested Citation

  • Ole P. Kristensen, 1983. "Public Versus Private Provision of Governmental Services: The Case of Danish Fire Protection Services," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 20(1), pages 1-9, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:20:y:1983:i:1:p:1-9
    DOI: 10.1080/713703172
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/713703172
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/713703172?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brueckner, Jan K., 1981. "Congested public goods: The case of fire protection," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 45-58, February.
    2. Robert Deacon, 1979. "The expenditure effects of alternative public supply institutions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 381-397, September.
    3. James Bennett & Manuel Johnson, 1979. "Public versus private provision of collective goods and services: garbage collection revisited," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 55-63, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bozec, Richard, 2004. "L’analyse comparative de la performance entre les entreprises publiques et les entreprises privées : le problème de mesure et son impact sur les résultats," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 80(4), pages 619-654, Décembre.
    2. Douglas C. Bice & William H. Hoyt, 1997. "The Impact of Mandates and Tax Limits on Voluntary Contributions to Local Public Services: An Application to Fire Protection Services," Public Economics 9704002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Deller, Steven C. & Hinds, David G. & Hinman, Donald L., 2001. "Local Public Services In Wisconsin: Alternatives For Municipalities With A Focus On Privatization," Staff Papers 12658, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    4. John M. Cobin, 2013. "The Effectiveness of Delhi's Fire Safety Regulation Amidst Poverty, Ignorance, Corruption and Non-Compliance," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 361-378, October.
    5. David, Guy & Harrington, Scott E., 2010. "Population density and racial differences in the performance of emergency medical services," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 603-615, July.
    6. Holger MAHLENKAMP, 2015. "From State To Market Revisited: A Reassessment Of The Empirical Evidence On The Efficiency Of Public (And Privately-Owned) Enterprises," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(4), pages 535-557, December.
    7. James Peoples & Bin Wang, 2007. "Privatization and Labor Cost Savings: Evidence from Health Care Services," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 35(2), pages 145-157, June.
    8. Witte, Kristof De & Geys, Benny, 2011. "Evaluating efficient public good provision: Theory and evidence from a generalised conditional efficiency model for public libraries," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 319-327, May.
    9. Brasington, David M. & Parent, Olivier, 2024. "Fire protection services and house prices: A regression discontinuity investigation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    10. Stephen L. Mehay & Rodolfo A. Gonzalez, 1987. "Outside Information and the Monopoly Power of a Public Bureau: An Empirical Analysis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 15(1), pages 61-75, January.
    11. Reiter, Michael & Weichenrieder, Alfons J., 1999. "Public Goods, Club Goods, and the Measurement of Crowding," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 69-79, July.
    12. Ghosh, Madanmohan & Whalley, John, 2008. "State owned enterprises, shirking and trade liberalization," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1206-1215, November.
    13. Robert A. Mcguire & Robert Ohsfeldt, 1986. "Public versus Private Water Delivery: A Critical Analysis of a Hedonic Cost Approach," Public Finance Review, , vol. 14(3), pages 339-350, July.
    14. Albert Solé-Ollé, 2001. "Budget spillovers in a metropolitan area: typology and empirical evidence," Working Papers 2001/5, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    15. Fitjar, Rune Dahl, 2019. "2019/01 Merging city and suburban governments: A public choice perspective on the Norwegian local government reform," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2019/1, University of Stavanger.
    16. Jaakko Meriläinen & Janne Tukiainen, 2019. "Public Procurement versus Laissez-Faire: Evidence from Household Waste Collection," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 65(4), pages 446-463.
    17. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell M. Rhine, 2006. "On the size and growth of government," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 88(Jan), pages 13-30.
    18. George A. Boyne & Michael Cole, 1998. "Revolution, Evolution and Local Government Structure: An Empirical Analysis of London," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 35(4), pages 751-768, April.
    19. Thiess Büttner & Alexander Ebertz & Björn Kauder & Markus Reischmann, 2013. "Finanzwissenschaftliche Begutachtung des kommunalen Finanzausgleichs in Rheinland-Pfalz," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 58, October.
    20. Rosen Valchev & Antony Davies, 2009. "Transparency, Performance, and Agency Budgets: A Rational Expectations Modeling Approach," Working Papers 2009-004, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.

    More about this item

    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:sae:urbstu:v:20:y:1983:i:1:p:1-9. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    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.