A Reassessment of City/County Consolidation: Economic Development Impacts

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“Over the past two decades, a large body of literature has examined the fiscal consequences of city/ county consolidation. Much of this research suggests that consolidation results in expansions in local budgets and in the scope and quality of municipal services (Erie, Kirlin, and Rabinovitz 1972; Benton and Gamble 1984; Seamon and Feiock 1995).

Recent studies suggest that consolidation also benefits local economic development efforts (Owen 1992; Rusk 1993; Savitch and Vogel 1995). Unlike these public-sector tax and expenditure effects, the impact of consolidation on overall local economic conditions has not been subjected to systematic empirical tests.

This research note begins to fill this lacuna by building on Benton and Gamble’s analysis (1984) of the effect of consolidation on taxes and expenditures in Jacksonville, Florida. We employ a similar design, but also include private-sector growth and use a Box-Tiao time-series model (Box and Tiao 1975), together with more contemporary data to identify the overall economic development effects of a city/county merger.”

R. Feiock, Jered B. Carr | Sep 1 1997 | Economics | State and Local Government Review https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Reassessment-of-City%2FCounty-Consolidation%3A-Feiock-Carr/62d102b10f0255f3e5af43949e46be0281fad5f3

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