Academic Avenues

“In Europe, the amalgamation of local authorities is currently used to optimize public resources. Although amalgamation involves several advantages, it needs to fulfil three conditions to be considered successful. First, address local preferences and needs; second, be fair, transparent and accessible to citizens; and third, be a compromise between central and local political elites. In the current paper the fulfilling of these three conditions is analysed using the comprehensive, bottom-up, Finnish reform introduced during the period of 2008–2013.

The findings conclude that while the Finnish local reform plan has been successful in reaching a compromise between local and central governments, it has failed insofar as it has not fulfilled the condition of making the process fair, transparent and accessible to citizens. Furthermore, whether the amalgamation has allowed local government to address citizens’ preferences and needs in a meaningful and responsive way has yet to be demonstrated.”

Published in Miscellanea Geographica: Regional Studies on Development | Xavier Albacete | 2017, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Reshaping-local-borders-in-Europe-today.-A-critical-Albacete-Donada/b1931fed20dd1161965e5134b0e211bd912688a1, https://consensus.app/details/furthermore-whether-amalgamation-allowed-government-albacete/423f6b8dc22f5bb0a955dc964b92e239/

“The Welsh Office has proposed that local government in Wales be restructured to produce a system of 20 unitary authorities based on the boundaries of the existing 37 district councils. All eight of the Welsh county councils will be abolished. The consultation paper on reform in Wales claims that a single tier of local government has four main advantages: greater public accountability; the removal of friction between counties and districts; better service co‐ordination; and enhanced efficiency. The consultation paper contains neither reasoned arguments nor empirical evidence to substantiate these claims. A better approach to local government reform would enable diverse local circumstances and preferences to be reflected in diverse local structures.”

Published in Public Money & Management | George A. Boyne | 1992, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-reform-of-local-government-structure-in-Wales%3A-Boyne/870abca582e75f736cbcd0c6741fe890c83e49e9, https://consensus.app/details/approach-government-reform-would-enable-circumstances-boyne/4b6c620111a259b1b253ad1b00ac61a1/

“It is common to examine the organisation of local government in terms of the functions different local governments are responsible for. Equally important, however, is at what level decisions on “who does what” are made and accommodations to change undertaken. On the questions of both functional responsibility and where decisions are made, it is interesting to compare the provincial approaches taken in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with those of Alberta and British Columbia.

In this paper, the differences in approaches are briefly described; then, details are provided for one major case in British Columbia, the capital region. Because the capital region of British Columbia has the same population as the newly amalgamated Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), but could not be more differently organised, some comparisons between the capital region and HRM are provided to illustrate the differences. Provincial Approaches Provincial policy in Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick implies that the provincial government knows best how to organise local government and assign functions to different local government units as evidenced by provincial imposed reorganisations, including amalgamation, in Miramichi in New Brunswick, Cape Breton and Halifax in Nova Scotia, and in several regions of Ontario (Vojnovic 1997).

The policy implies that one can analyze local government services, decide who should do what, and impose the most efficient structure, even when local officials and citizens disagree. This parallels a classical central planning perspective where one assumes that local knowledge is easy to obtain and some optimal organisation can be identified by central authorities. Provincial policy in Alberta and British Columbia is much different. In both of these provinces, their municipal acts set out procedural rules whereby citizens may incorporate, dissolve or amalgamate local government with the initiative coming from citizens or local governments themselves. Both provide for the creation of regional organisations but do not impose them.

The approach is one where structure itself is left to local people with the expectation that they will pursue their own interest and evolve appropriate structures of local government over time. In addition, local units make their own decisions on “who does what” in dividing responsibility for different services among themselves, including between the municipal and regional governments. This is much more an evolutionary approach where it is assumed that local people know best and that local government organisation and operations will evolve over time to meet citizens’ needs. The provincial government itself provides the basic rules within which these changes can occur much as it provides a basic legal structure for markets. This latter approach contrasts with central planning approaches in that it recognises that local information is costly and that polycentric institutional arrangements may outperform centralised ones in complex environments.

It is useful to examine this latter approach with the British Columbia model, and specifically with some comparisons with Halifax. British Columbia British Columbia has a long history of policies allowing local citizens to take the initiative regarding local government structure similar to the states of Washington, Oregon and California. In 1919, for example, “home-rule,” where a municipality can organise itself and undertake any activity not specifically forbidden by the provincial government, only failed by one vote in the legislature (Bish and Clemens 1999). British Columbia’s philosophy has resulted in municipalities and improvement districts throughout the province, but there was no general form of local government outside of municipal boundaries. In these rural areas the provincial government provided roads and policing, there were school districts across the province and welfare was and continues to be provided provincially province-wide.”

Published in The Canadian Journal of Regional Science | R. Bish | 2000, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Evolutionary-Alternatives-for-Metropolitan-Areas%3A-Bish/58cec92ad9ead7fbed90ea51be616e644ad3f91f, https://consensus.app/details/approaches-provincial-policy-ontario-nova-scotia-bish/db938c51605d5c2a97298ac279c98648/

“Based on the literature on decentralization, this article investigates the institutional arrangement and autonomy of local governments in Tigray Regional state. It is based on two rounds of field work covering nine districts. At a formal level, local governments are autonomous units with some defined mandates including power to decide on policy issues. In reality however, local governments in the study area act more as deconcentrated than as autonomous units since their autonomy is curtailed by higher level governments and party structures. Local governments are thus extension arms of the regional state with little autonomy of their own.

Institutions such as elected councils, mayors and the executive exist at the local level but there is more vertical than horizontal accountability. As a result, local Councils have not been able to ensure accountability. Thus decentralization has not resulted in popular control of local governance and local-level development as interests of the party and the local political elite prevail over popular interests. The article calls for rethinking the design of local government that would constitute a local government deal that shifts decision-making away from higher level institutions to the local level, constituting multi-stake holders having control over the affairs of local government.”

Published in Law and Development Review | A. Fiseha | 2019, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Local-Level-Decentralization-in-Ethiopia%3A-Case-of-Fiseha/286da3fb2c06a048c594bfa4b8e630d7ef8cb7bd, https://consensus.app/details/article-calls-rethinking-design-government-would-fiseha/683ee6cb66975efea26e18eb942941b6/

“…for local government to tackle social exclusion and poverty more effectively it is also necessary for the structural and regional dimensions of social exclusion to be taken more into account by central government, and for a new equilibrium between central, regional and local initiative to be achieved.”

National policy initiatives such as the establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit and the new government strategy, ‘Opportunity for All’, have provided a new stimulus to local authorities to develop more effective local strategies to promote social inclusion. The major features of current local initiatives are described, and the leadership and management challenges presented to local authorities are discussed.

Published in Public Money & Management | M. Geddes | 2000, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Modernization-and-Improvement-of-Government-and-Geddes-Root/3233f8a021b71e3155a0d92391957914c02f403e, https://consensus.app/details/however-government-tackle-exclusion-poverty-effectively-geddes/377c1f5c616b5d659907c185b65be9dc/

“We develop a theory of the ownership of firms in an environment without secure property rights against state encroachment. “Private ownership” leads to excessive revenue hiding and “state ownership” (i.e., national government ownership) fails to provide incentives for managers and local governments in a credible way.

Because “local government ownership” integrates local government activities and business activities, local government may better serve the interests of the national government, and thus local government ownership may credibly limit state predation, increase local public goods provision, and reduce costly revenue hiding. We use our theory to interpret the relative success of local government-owned firms during China’s transition to a market economy.”

Published in Quarterly Journal of Economics | Jiahua Che | 1998, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Insecure-Property-Rights-and-Government-Ownership-Che-Qian/06ba65d026dec2ae4daee76c452aff097546c0bc, https://consensus.app/details/because-government-ownership-integrates-government-che/28a1023793cc5b51920083234068e0c2/

“Tiebout (1956) had suggested that local government policy differentials might exercise a major impact on individuals’ locational decisions. The findings in this paper seem to support Tiebout’s position. In particular, of the six results (coefficients) obtained in describing the migration-impact of local government policies, only two were not statistically significant determinants of migration. Of the remaining four coefficients, two were statistically significant at the five percent level and two were statistically significant at the one percent level. In addition, both white migrants and black migrants were affected by local government policy differentials. Thus, the diversity of local government economic policies exercises a profound impact on the spatial allocation of resources.

A pertinent question to ask is “Does this impact of local government policy differentials on hyman migration lead to a significant misallocation of resources?” Clearly, unless the enormous diversity of policy differentials is very carefully and explicitly planned (so as to elicit a more desirable pattern of migration), the likelihood of a non-optimal (undesirable) migration-impact would seem frighteningly high. This would seem a matter warranting careful examination, but, alas, a matter beyond the immediate scope of this paper.”

Published in Public Choice | R. Cebula | 1974, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Local-government-policies-and-migration-Cebula/87355122ee90db1837bbfbabce877c77329eaacc, https://consensus.app/details/thus-diversity-government-policies-exercises-impact-cebula/92aa60366cfd5b27b9a529d5b2950640/

“It is shown in this article how theories justifying local government in Britain are largely based on the expedience of providing administrative efficiency or stable democracy for the central state rather than ethical grounds that justify local government as an independent entity in its own right.

The article critically reviews the development of theories justifying local government within Britain and argues that it is possible on the basis of Mill’s arguments within On Liberty to establish a strong ethical justification for local government. It is shown how Mill did not develop this line of thought but established substantive arguments concerning the value of local government for securing a stable liberal democracy and how successive mainstream theorists have modified but not substantially departed from this approach.”

Published in Political Studies | J. Chandler | 2008, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Liberal-Justifications-for-Local-Government-in-The-Chandler/e91cbb5a20231aa7038112a9844dca49605fdce7, https://consensus.app/details/shown-article-theories-justifying-government-britain-chandler/064f8c91d226519a976de8fee16db6cd/

“The conclusion of this analysis is that tax limitations have brought about an unforeseen improvement in the structure of local government. While the actual implementation in particular cases may not always lead to desirable results, there is hope for improvement. The important consideration is not whether spending is at some particular optimal level, but whether the fiscal constitution has changed so as to generate more rational outcomes. As Professor Buchanan has emphasized, economists should be ‘process-oriented’ rather than ‘outcome-oriented.’ This paper has presented analysis to indicate that the fiscal processes of local government may well have been improved in an unexpected manner.”

Bennett and Dilorenzo have provided evidence that limitations on taxes and spending induce a proliferation of special purpose local government. They conclude that the effects on spending were less than originally supposed. Whatever the effects on total spending, a very important effect on the limitations is an induced change in the fiscal constitution of local government. Using a public choice approach, this institutional change was found to have certain desirable features.

Decreased fiscal illusion and increased accountability is obtained by separating the functions of government and their sources of revenue. This is done by placing general purpose government expenditures ‘off-budget’ and on to a separate special purpose government budget. In effect, the proliferation of governmental units allows for the earmarking of revenues. This allows for more rational decisions in a democratic setting and also limits the exploitation of taxpayers in a nondemocratic setting. The proliferation of governments also allows for more competition among governments and lower public service costs. In addition, alternatives in public services levels may increase consumption efficiency.

Published in Public Choice | R. Blewett | 1984, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Off-budget-activities-of-local-government%3A-Comment-Blewett/8f493ce25fe1110ed2238227548cc99da1929c18, https://consensus.app/details/conclusion-analysis-limitations-brought-improvement-blewett/2ea3eeed2bdb5a278cf2c48eea1432bb/