Cutbacks revisited: the relationship between resources and performance

This article investigates the effects of staffing and employee cutbacks in public safety agencies in the context of county governments in California, Texas, and Florida (2002–2014). Although resources have been regarded as one of the most important determinants of performance, we argue that the potential endogeneity and the autoregressive nature of public service performance should be considered to clarify the relationship between resources and performance. This study provides evidence of the inverted-U shape relationship between employee cutbacks and performance, implying that the initial benefit of cutbacks is subject to diminishing returns, and eventually degrades performance.