The assessment of co-production of public services: In search for a framework of analysis

While many papers on co-production have been published over the last years some gaps are still present in the literature. In particular, on the one hand the concept of co-production remains vague and to some extent confusing, on the other hand studies that address the effects of co-production are scant. It appears that co-production is a virtue in itself, which does not need to be legitimized by referring to the impacts generated. In this perspective, adding more insights on the issue of the assessment of co-production of public services can also be useful for addressing the need for more systematic comparability in the studies on co-production of public services.This paper aims at developing a framework to assess the effects of co-production of public services at different stages of the cycle of services provision. We build our work on previous empirical research and on an extensive critical review of the main literature on co-production of public services.