Supply and Demand for Citizen Volunteers in California Municipal Service Delivery

In this paper, we utilize administrative data from California to examine the use of citizen volunteers to coproduce local services. We do so by constructing models that examine the demand- and supply-side determinants of adopting volunteer labor for five specific services (police, fire, EMS, parks and recreation, and library) as well as an aggregate model for these services. We also assess the potential effects of externalized service delivery on the use of volunteers. We find, among other things, that cities relying on outsourced service production tend to opt for volunteers at lower rates. The impacts of other variables on the decision to use volunteer labor in local service delivery appear to mostly vary by service type.