Using Census of Governments data, preferences for private and intermunicipal contracting by U.S. counties during the 1992–2002 period are modeled as a function of established economic and political factors. After distinguishing between private and intermunicipal contracting, there is no evidence that fiscal stress induces privatization. High debt levels are associated with fewer publicly delivered services, but counties with high debt are as likely to partner with neighboring municipalities as they are with private firms. Political factors are weak predictors of either form of contracting. The strongest and most reliable predictor of both private and intermunicipal contracting is the creation of new public services. These findings imply the strategic use of contracting for trial, temporary, or contingent services.

National Transit Data from 1993 through 2004 is analyzed to examine the effects of contracting out on the cost efficiency and resource allocation of motor bus and demand response services. For motor bus service, results indicate no difference in cost between inhouse and fully contracted operations. Contracting has a weak curvilinear association to total cost, suggesting that the most cost-efficient agencies either fully contract or they provide full in-house service. In contrast, demand response contracting is associated with about 20% lower total costs. Competitive conditions or the choice by agencies to offer specialized services may explain this result. Transit agencies that contract with multiple motor bus providers pay a cost premium, whereas multiple providers have no effect on demand response cost. Contracting does not affect the growth of cost for either service. An examination of expense subcategories reveals no reduction in administrative expenses when agencies contract services and only a partial reduction in nonoperational maintenance expenses. Overall, the results call into question the efficacy of competitive contracting models of transit service delivery and the use of fully allocated costing methods in makeversus-buy decisions.During the Reagan Era, public transit was identified as a promising service for privatization (Lave 1985;Savas 1987;Walters 1987), and definitive steps were taken to involve private firms in the delivery of transit services. The Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) issued regulations that rewarded public transit operators that adopted competitive bidding procedures and earmarked subsidies for private operators to purchase vehicles

Prior research linking public-private contracts with political donations has not examined the dynamics of exchange. Evaluating data from Wisconsin, I test for a temporal association between the awarding of public-private construction contracts and political donations by construction firm owners and executives. My findings indicate that donation activity peaks near the months when contracts are approved; that contract-related donation premiums are comparable in magnitude to election cycle premiums; and that political giving varies across three separate procurement processes. I deduce that patterns of political giving reflect strategic expenditures during the negotiation phase of the public-private procurement process. These findings have implications for campaign finance reform and privatization policy.

Using county-level data, the author evaluates how labor affected the general population's political behavior during the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Voter turnout increased with unionization, but at declining rates with higher levels of unionization. The unionization/voter turnout link was stronger in counties with lower median incomes, higher income inequality, and lower levels of education, suggesting that unions partially closed the political participation gap between low- and high-SES (socioeconomic status) populations. State right-to-work laws, and the absence of collective bargaining rights for public employees, reduced labor's ability to increase voter turnout. The union effect on candidate preference had a positive, curvilinear association with union membership, but this effect was stronger in high-SES regions than in low-SES regions. Overall, these results imply a paradox for organized labor: unions can effectively increase working-class voter turnout, but they have difficulty persuading the working class to vote for pro-labor political candidates.