"Sergio G. Lazzarini is the Chafi Haddad Professor of Management at Insper in Brazil. He is the Director of Insper Metricis, a center dedicated to the study of impact management and measurement. Sergio has held visiting positions at Harvard University (2010, 2012), University of St Gallen...

Received theories suggest a possible cost-quality tradeoff when private outsourcing arrangements are used in public services. Using data from Brazilian prisons, our study provides evidence that contradicts this prediction: the prisons not only run at a lower cost, but also show similar or...