Quasi-Market Competition in Public Service Provision: User Sorting and Cream-Skimming

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Guul, Thorbjorn Sejr; Hvidman, Ulrik; Sievertsen, Hans Henrik
• 署名单位: Aarhus University; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of Bristol
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muab002
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 740-755
• 关键词: schools benefit students; performance management; CHOICE; incentives; english; sector; determinants; ORGANIZATION; GOVERNMENT; strategy

摘要

Quasi-markets that introduce choice and competition between public service providers are intended to improve quality and efficiency. This article demonstrates that quasi-market competition may also affect the distribution of users. First, we develop a simple theoretical framework that distinguishes between user sorting and cream-skimming as mechanisms through which quasi-markets may lead to high-ability users becoming more concentrated among one group of providers and low-ability users among a different group. Second, we empirically examine the impact of a nationwide quasi-market policy that introduced choice and activity-based budgeting into Danish public high schools. We exploit variation in the degree of competition that schools were exposed to, based on the concentration of providers within a geographical area. Using a differences-in-differences design-and register data containing the full population of students over a 9-year period (N= 207,394)-we show that the composition of students became more concentrated in terms of intake grade point average after the reform in high-competition areas relative to low-competition areas. These responses in high-competition regions appear to be driven both by changes in user sorting on the demand side and by cream-skimming behavior among public providers on the supply side.