Contracting out job placement services might save costs and provide a service capacity buffer in times of increasing unemployment. However, state agencies must be able to ensure a suitable balance between services and quality, and to carefully monitor and evaluate private provider outcomes....

In many countries, employment services are contracted out to private providers. However, there is little evidence on the contract design as well as on the effects of differential pricing on private provider performance. This paper contributes to the literature by presenting detailed information...

We review the literature on public sector outsourcing to explore if the theoretical predictions from the incomplete contracts literature hold up to recent empirical evidence. Guided by theory, we arrange services according to the type and magnitude of their contractibility problems. The...