Community-based outcomes of interlocal cooperation in social services

Abstract

We investigate the effects of interlocal cooperation in social services, focusing on two poverty-related outcomes: guaranteed minimum income and housing rental support. Using a rich database on municipalities in Catalonia, we firstly apply a quasi-experimental strategy and then perform robustness analyses using panel models. Our most robust results indicate that cooperation has a positive and significant effect on rental assistance, but no significant effects on guaranteed minimum income. This suggests that cooperation may be effective in improving community-based outcomes where these are determined by services that involve more complex tasks and procedures.