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Higher performance with increased risk of undesirable outcomes
The dilemma of U.S. child welfare services privatization
Elgin, D. J., & Carter, D. P. (2020). Higher performance with increased risk of undesirable outcomes: The dilemma of U.S. child welfare services privatization. Public Management Review, 22(11), 1603-1623. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2019.1637013
This paper examines the performance implications of privatization in U.S. child welfare service systems. We combine insights from contracting and nonprofit management literatures with a 'deficit model' of privatization to posit that fully-privatized systems delivered by nonprofits outperform their governmental counterparts. Due to resource constraints, however, we expect nonprofits to prioritize the greatest good for the greatest number of clients over client-specific outcomes. We use a quasi-experimental research design and a national administrative dataset, finding that full-scale privatization increases children's likelihood of achieving the most desirable outcome and simultaneously places her at greater risk for the least desirable outcome.