Countries have taken different roads when it comes to regulation, competition, user choice, management practices, etc. The proper roles of the public and of the private sector are very much open for discussion. School voucher systems, for instance, are publicly financed, while the ownership and operation of schools can be either public or private.
The service sector is playing an increasingly important role in high-income countries. It has, however, proved notoriously difficult to increase labor productivity in the service sector. At the same time, the demand for services such as health care and elderly care is expected to increase due to aging populations. These challenges have pushed countries, such as Sweden, to experiment with service privatization (both in health care and elderly care, but also in education). Other countries are advancing the role of the government in the health care sector as a means to control spending (e.g. the Affordable Care Act in the U.S.).
Research on the intersection between the public and the private sectors on markets for education, health care, elderly care and child care is of considerable scientific and practical importance. Therefore, we organize this event to address the following, and similar, aspects of efficient service provision:
- Ownership and market structure
- Voucher systems and user choice
- Management practices and New Public Management
- Contracts, user fees and service quality
- Public-private partnerships