Exploring the Determinants of Local Service Termination*

Abstract

Objectives In the past, research focusing on local service decisions was dominated by the exploration of make‐or‐buy choices (i.e., how to produce services). In this article, we extend this venue of research to explore service termination (i.e., whether to provide). In doing so, we adopt four theoretical strands developed in the fields of public policy and management to guide our research: policy termination, political economy, make‐or‐buy, and policy diffusion. Methods We utilize multiple International City/County Management Association surveys for our analysis. We supplement these data with information gleaned from a variety of other sources, including Census data, to construct a binary logistic regression model examining the determinants of service termination. Results We find that local governments are likely to terminate their services when they were previously outsourced to third‐party contractors rather than produced by their own employees. Further, our results indicate that locales tend to drop services more often when they are not commonly provided by peer jurisdictions, supporting the idea of diffusion. Conclusions Our findings suggest that, despite a dearth of research undertaken, service termination is surprisingly common and widespread across service areas.

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