Collaborators, supplementers, purchasers and privatizers - profiling the social and health care delivery forms of finnish municipalities through cluster analysis

Municipalities´ service delivery choices are under constant public debate. To better understand the configurations of service delivery forms across different municipalities, we analyse all 309 Finnish municipalities’ delivery of 10 social and healthcare services. Five clusters emerge: Collaborators, Supplementers, Purchasers, Privatizers and Decentralizers (likely representing municipalities in transition). Overall, mixed delivery dominates. While the clusters present differences in municipal characteristics, surprisingly few statistically significant cost differences emerge, suggesting different configurations of efficient service delivery choices exist. Smaller municipalities can achieve economies of scale by collaboration, while large municipalities seem to ‘get away’ with going against transaction cost economics theory recommendations.