Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/204730 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
SITE Working Paper No. 19
Publisher: 
Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), Stockholm
Abstract: 
Many quality dimensions are hard to contract upon and are at risk of degradation when services are procured rather than produced in-house. However, procurement may foster performance-improving innovation. We assemble a large data set on elderly care services in Sweden between 1990 and 2009, including survival rates - our measure of non-contractible quality - and subjectively perceived quality of service. We estimate how procurement from private providers affects these measures using a difference-in-difference approach. The results indicate that procurement significantly increases non-contractible quality as measured by survival rate, reduces the cost per resident but does not affect subjectively perceived quality.
Subjects: 
elderly care
incomplete contracts
limited enforcement
mortality
non-contractible quality
outsourcing
nursing homes
performance measurement
perceived quality
privatization
procurement
JEL: 
H57
I18
L33
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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