Revenue scarcity and government outsourcing: Evidence from Norwegian local governments Vrije Universiteit Brussel
It is often said that “necessity is the mother of invention”. In this article, we assess whether this applies also to the design of public authorities’ service provision. Particularly, we evaluate whether revenue scarcity – as an indicator of fiscal stress – induces government outsourcing. In contrast to previous studies, we exploit arguably exogenous variation in local government revenue across time and space to derive stronger inferences on ...