Recent Publications by Mildred Warner
From here, you can also look for papers on specific topics or of a specific type, or view all papers by Professor Warner.
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Warner, Mildred and Raymond Gradus. 2009. "The Consequences of Implementing a Child Care Voucher: Evidence from Australia, the Netherlands and USA," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper, TI 2009-078/3, Erasmus University, Netherlands.
In the Netherlands, the USA and Australia public funding has promoted parental choice by introducing a voucher for child care, where parents are free to choose the provider. The policy experiments in these three countries and the outcomes provide useful information about the consequences of introducing a voucher in the child care market. We show the voucher system can be effective in increasing demand, but there can be uneven supply responses. The structure of the voucher income scheme and quality controls affect the nature of the supply response. We argue that voucher schemes must take into account the complex nature of the child care market and the substitutability between free public care, private market care and unpaid household care. To secure quality and access, government must also play a coordinating role that vouchers alone can not supply. -
Warner, Mildred E 2009. "(Not)Valuing Care: A Review of Recent Popular Economic Reports on Preschool in the US," Feminist Economics, 15(2)
Recently a series of popular economics reports in the United States has called for increased investment in children’s early education. These reports articulate a new concept, the ‘public finance value’ of children, and argue for increased investment in preschool because of its positive impact on the long term fiscal health of the nation. These papers are analyzed to assess their attention to the multi-dimensional aspects of early care and education (ECE). Although these papers evaluate increased investment in preschool, they fail to recognize the need for a comprehensive system of ECE that includes support for child care and the unpaid care and education provided by parents. As a result, the reports undervalue the contributions of women and of the ECE sector itself. Feminist economics offers a broader perspective that would help these authors avoid conceptual traps and recognize the need for more comprehensive reform. - Bel, Germà and Mildred Warner 2009 "Managing Competition in City Services: The Case of Barcelona," Journal of Urban Affairs, 31(5).
"Clean and safe" strategies are part of urban regeneration in the entrepreneurial city. These strategies are often characterized by privatization and public-private partnerships which enhance investment and create a city space more amenable to tourists and consumers. While such approaches promote increased investment, and differentiate services by district, they raise challenges of competition, cost escalation and public participation. Barcelona’s solid waste management strategy is presented to show the importance of a strong public coordination role when using competition to promote technological innovation and improved quality in city service delivery. -
Warner, Mildred E. 2009. "Civic Government or Market-Based Governance? The Limits of Privatization for Rural Local Governments," Agriculture and Human Values 26(1):133-143.
Thomas Lyson argued that civic markets were possible and could have positive impacts on rural development. Increasingly local governments are being forced into market-based governance regimes of privatization, decentralization and free trade. This article explores the impacts of these trends on rural local governments in the U.S. These market trends can erode civic foundations, but recent data show local governments are balancing markets with civic concerns and giving increased attention to citizen interests in the service delivery process.
- Morrissey, Taryn and Mildred E. Warner (2009), "Employer-Supported Child Care: Who Participates?" Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming.
Child care vouchers are becoming more common and can provide child care assistance to a wide spectrum of the population. There is little empirical research, however, on which workers participate in their employer-supported program. In this exploratory study, employees with children at one large university completed questionnaires to gather information on their child care arrangements and their experience with the employer’s child care voucher program (N = 949). Results indicate that the employees who were most in need of child care assistance in terms of family structure, job type, and child care expenses were more likely to receive vouchers. Federal policy limiting the structure of employer-sponsored voucher programs appeared to present barriers to participation for certain groups of employees. -
Warner, M.E. and A. Hefetz 2009. Trends in Public and Contracted Government Services: 2002-2007, Reason Foundation Policy Brief #80, Los Angeles, CA: Reason Foundation.
In this article we look at trends from 2002-2007 with special focus on differences in service delivery patterns by metro status. With the Reinventing Government reforms of the 1990s we saw a rise in for profit contracting among all governments from 1992 to 1997. In the 2007 survey we see a different story emerging. For profit contracting rates of suburbs increase slightly, but rural use of for profit contracting increases dramatically – almost back to the peak levels in 1997. Metro use of privatization, by contrast, falls. This article seeks to understand these trends. We believe that the rural resurgence reflects a diffusion of the innovation process where rural areas catch up with contracting – especially for relatively easy to contract services. The metro decline reflects a different kind of managerial learning where services that we earlier thought should be easy to contract have proven difficult to contract and monitor. In some cases these services have come back to public delivery and in other cases inter-governmental contracting has grown. Intergovernmental contracting enables local governments to share expertise and equipment, reach economies of scale in service delivery and promote regional coordination while maintaining familiar avenues for citizen input and accountability. Contract monitoring among local governments is low – and such low rates of external monitoring may lead governments to prefer contracting alternatives that keep the service in the public sector. - Warner, M.E. and Amir Hefetz 2009.
Cooperative Competition: Alternative Service Delivery, 2002-2007 in The Municipal Year Book 2009. Washington, DC: International City County Management Association.ICMA has been tracking local government use of alterative service delivery mechanisms since 1982. In prior surveys, for profit contracting was typically one or two percentage points higher than intergovernmental contracting, but in the 2007 survey this is no longer the case. Learning from their experience with for profit and mixed contracting, local governments are now using intergovernmental contracting as the preferred contracting alternative. The 2007 survey shows direct public delivery and mixed public-private delivery have fallen back to their 1997 levels and for profit privatization and non profit contracting are flat. What has grown is inter-governmental contracting. However, lack of sufficient private competition remains a problem, and monitoring service quality and citizen satisfaction is getting less attention than in 2002. Failure to adequately monitor contracts typically leads to reductions in future contracting. - Adriance, Shira, Caroline Marshall, Bjorn Markeson, Louise Stoney and Mildred Warner 2009. From Regional Economic Analysis to Economic Development Policy: A Review of State and Local Child Care Economic Impact Studies. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
- Shellenback, Karen and Mildred E. Warner 2009. "Integrating Care, Work and Community: New Policies for a New Economy, A Report from the Cornell University Conference: Preparing for the New Century: Innovative Work and Family Strategies."
- Shellenback, Karen 2009.
Child Care & Cornell Child Care Grant Subsidy Program Survey: Impact on the Cornell Community, Summary Report.
- Warner, Mildred E. 2008. Local Government Infrastructure – and the False Promise of Privatization. New York: Century Foundation, forthcoming.
Public infrastructure is largely managed in America by state and local governments, which also provide most of the financing. In fact, local government has more fiscal responsibility in the U.S. than do local governments in any other nation in the developed world, says Cornell professor Mildred Warner. One popular answer to more effective use of funds has been to bring market and business principles to such services, and in particular to privatize them. But Warner, based on her own comprehensive empirical studies, says the experiment in privatization at the state and local level has not been satisfactory. State and local governments thus need substantially more federal financial support. She provides guidelines as to how and when privatization can be valuable and when it will fail. -
Israel, Evelyn and Mildred Warner 2008. "Planning for Family Friendly Communities," PAS Memo, American Planning Association, Chicago, IL. November 2008.
Planners are concerned with the health of their municipalities and regions, and regularly confront issues that affect families. However, the vast majority of planners do not consider children in comprehensive plans. In a society that is increasingly concerned with environmental sustainability because of its effects on future generations, shouldn't we, as planners, also be concerned with planning communities for people from childhood to old age? Planners can play a role in creating more family friendly communities with housing at affordable prices, access to child care, parks, pedestrian pathways, quality public schools, safe neighborhoods, and many other potential features that promote family well-being. With nearly 200 attendees at a session devoted to planning family friendly communities at the APA's 2008 National Planning Conference, this issue is drawing growing concern and attention from planners.
Cities are rebuilding with an enthusiasm for attracting empty nesters and young urban professionals, and there is tremendous interest in Richard Florida's work (2002) on the creative economy. But planning priorities that stem from this approach often ignore the needs of families with young children. While suburbs are considered the most popular place for families, family needs are not necessarily met well there either. Single-use zoning hinders access to amenities for families and prevents families from running small businesses (particularly child care) out of their homes. Transportation options are also limited, and families contend with the expense and time of long commutes and lack of accessible child care. What about planning communities for the whole life course? Research by AARP has shown that the elderly want to age in place, and many of the issues they endorse — walkability, public transit, affordable housing, conveniently located services, parks, and opportunities for civic engagement — are applicable to creating family friendly communities (Kihl et al. 2005; Kochera et al. 2005). How can planners create family friendly communities wherever they work?
APA, in collaboration with Cornell University, conducted a survey in spring 2008 to assess attitudes about and barriers to creating family friendly communities, as well as current planning practice. The survey was answered by more than 900 planners from across the country and showed that planners are remarkably positive about the importance of families to communities and the role planners can play in designing communities that better meet families' needs. This PAS Memo describes the results of that survey. -
Warner, Mildred E. and Sally Shortall 2008. "Growth Coalitions and Rural Development Policy in the EU and the US" EuroChoices Point de Vue, 7(3):35-37.
- Warner, M.E. 2008. "Reversing Privatization, Rebalancing Government Reform: Markets, Deliberation and Planning," Policy and Society, 27(2): 163-174.
The last decades of the 20th century witnessed a profound experiment to increase the role of markets in local government service delivery. However, that experiment has failed to deliver adequately on efficiency, equity or voice criteria. This has led to reversals. But this reverse privatization process is not a return to the direct public monopoly delivery model of old. Instead it heralds the emergence of a new balanced position which combines use of markets, deliberation and planning to reach decisions which may be both efficient and more socially optimal. -
Bel, Germà and M.E. Warner 2008, "Does privatization of solid waste and water services reduce costs? A review of empirical studies," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 52: 1337-1348. DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2008.07.014.
In this paper, we conduct a review of all published econometric studies on privatization and costs in water distribution and solid waste delivery since the decade of the sixties. Although cost reduction was the key benefit claimed by privatization, little support is found for a systematic link between privatization and cost savings. From our analysis of the empirical literature we conclude that cost savings are not systematic in waste delivery and are not found in water distribution. Theoretical expectations for cost savings arise from the incentives of private ownership and the expected benefits from competition for the market. However, empirical results show the importance of market structure, industrial organization of the service sector, and government management, oversight and regulation. Concerning delivery costs, there is no systematic optimal choice between public and private production, therefore managers should approach the issue in a pragmatic way. - Bel, Germà and M. E. Warner 2008. "Challenging Issues in Local Privatization," Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, forthcoming, editorial overview to special issue.
Local government privatization has not delivered as expected on cost savings. Using empirical studies from North America and Europe, we show that local governments are pragmatic managers who must manage costs, markets and political interests simultaneously. Using a theoretical framework of actors, interests and incentives, we explain the lack of cost savings and demonstrate the importance of alternative management approaches. We argue analyses of local government contracting must address the dynamics of market management and do so in a comprehensive framework that includes both public and private actors and interests. -
Warner, Mildred E. and Germà Bel 2008. "Competition or Monopoly? Comparing US and Spanish Privatization," Public Administration: An International Quarterly, 86(3): 723-736.
Differences in national traditions of public intervention, institutional arrangements and public service markets make local public services an area of great diversity. In this paper we undertake a comparative study of how local governments arrange for delivery of water and waste services in the US and Spain. We find levels of privatization are higher in Spain than in the US. We review organizational reform in the two contexts and compare service delivery data using national surveys from each country. We find lower and less stable privatization in the US stems in part from adherence to public choice emphasis on the benefits of market competition over public monopoly. By contrast, Spanish municipalities reflect an industrial organization approach, and create hybrid public/private firms which benefit from both market engagement and economies of scale available under monopoly production. We conclude that managing monopoly may be more important than competition in local service delivery.
A complete list of publications, including earlier publications not shown in the above list, may be viewed by navigating to the Warner publications search page, selecting View publications by type or View publications chronologically, and then clicking Search.