Decentralization reflects a global trend to increase the responsiveness of state and local governments to economic forces, but it raises the challenge of how to secure redistributive goals. Theoretically, as the equalizing impact of federal aid declines under devolution, we expect subnational...

Despite two decades of experience with privatization, US local government use of contracting in public service delivery remains relatively flat. Market approaches to public goods provision emphasize the competitive state, and attribute limited degree of privatization to bureaucratic resistance....