Essays on Public Policy and Private Incentives

The main question asked in this thesis is how market-based governance structures influence the resource utilisation in public sector. The four essays are predominately occupied with policy issues. For instance, all essays are inspired by public sector reforms implemented across OECD member states during the last ten to fifteen years. Three out of four essays are applied econometric work concerned with analysing and describing effects of reforms made in the health care and social care sectors. The fourth paper is a theoretical work comparing different types of auction designs.