Does Coproduction of Public Services Support Government's Social Equity Goals? The Case of U.S. State Parks

Abstract

In the U.S., nearly half of all state parks now have a charitable “Friends of the Park” partner. While their support is welcome, differences in wealth across counties also imply these supporting charities may create inequities in parks’ resources. Logit and tobit regression analysis using multiple data sources tests this idea on the California and Florida state parks systems. Coproduction theory has been largely neutral on the social equity question. The context of public parks may be especially useful to study given the strong historical association between White, middle-class interests and the politics of outdoor recreation. Our results do indeed suggest such concerns apply to this context, although outcomes for parks users are also contextual to state policy decisions. Theoretically, these findings offer a means of understanding coproduction’s possible effects within the larger framework of government-nonprofit macro theories such as interdependence, demand-heterogeneity and philanthropic failure theory.