Where are the cost savings in city–county consolidation?

“Although the results of the four cases are mixed, we find that in some cases there are cost savings associated with city–county consolidation, more frequently in specific functional categories than in overall spending.

We also find that it is necessary to examine spending patterns over several years after consolidation. In some cases, short‐term savings dissipate over time. In other cases, initially modest savings grow over time due to a reduction in spending growth.”

Although proposals for city–county consolidation are often justified on the basis of reducing government expenditures or improving efficiency, few studies find that expenditures are actually reduced after consolidation. This study examines long‐term spending trends in four consolidated city–county jurisdictions for periods of eight to ten years pre‐ and post‐consolidation.

Published in Journal of Urban Affairs | Charles D. Taylor | 2017 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Where-are-the-cost-savings-in-city%E2%80%93county-Taylor-Faulk/42a6c1331b6acbb733bcde475388d26dd0b49b0e

Suburbs without a City

“The case highlights the power dimension of city-county consolidation, often overlooked by advocates of public choice as well as those favoring metropolitan consolidation.”

City-county consolidation is advanced as a good government reform to promote efficiency, equity, and accountability and, more recently, to reduce growing disparities between central cities and suburbs. Whether these objectives are realized is more doubtful than the fact that local reorganization embodies a real change in power relations. Altering boundaries changes the kinds of issues that are relevant to decision makers as well as the relative power of different populations. The authors analyze the recent city-county consolidation of Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky. The authors review how this came about and then focus on three critical realignments associated with merging the city and its surrounding county. These consist of shifts in territorial boundaries, management reforms, and political rules.

Published in Urban Affairs Review | H. Savitch | 2004 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Suburbs-without-a-City-Savitch-Vogel/496a2f627044843173f8c0477db774a266fa2ccb

When Efficiency Is Unbelievable: Normative Lessons from 30 Years of City–County Consolidations

“…the essential element of a successful consolidation is a group of civic elites who define the economic development vision for the community, determine that the existing political structure is incapable of supporting and implementing that vision, and convince the voters that city–county consolidation is the key to economic development that will benefit the whole community, not just the elites.”

We use a new model of city-county consolidation to analyze 12 local government consolidation attempts during the last three decades. Using a rigorously designed comparative case study, we identify the critical variables that explain why some consolidations succeed and others fail. Arguments for consolidation typically fail when they focus on the increased equity to be gained from the redistribution of revenues from the suburbs to central cities. Traditional arguments that are based on increased efficiency are also unsuccessful.

Published in Public Administration Review | Suzanne M. Leland | 2005, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/When-Efficiency-Is-Unbelievable%3A-Normative-Lessons-Leland-Thurmaier/d089bf8bbe7e94128278c7c68ebeb5bd3044d0bc

Impact Analyses of City-County Consolidation on Urban Growth in South Korea

“The results show that city-county consolidation has a significantly positive impact on growth of population and urbanized areas. Also, consolidated cities, compared to those failing to be consolidated, show a stronger tendency to balanced growth between former central cities and former unincorporated areas.

The results may imply that city-county consolidation brings positive influences on urban growth in terms of population and urbanized areas and has a potential to promote balanced growth between central cities and suburban areas.”

Impacts of planning at the regional level have been controversial. Supporters argue that regional efforts enhance economic competitiveness of the region, while some studies find that regions under parochial planning systems generate better economic performance. This paper aims to identify the effects of city-county consolidation, an example of regional planning, on urban growth and its growth patterns in South Korea. A simultaneous equations model with 3 stage least squares is employed to identify the impacts on urban growth. Specifically, four growth indicators, including population growth, employment growth, urbanized area growth, and financial growth, are used as endogenous variables, and dummy variables of consolidation types along with other control variables are used as exogenous variables. In addition, interaction terms combining the dummy variables with the ratio of growth differences between cities and counties are also employed.

Published in Journal of Korea Planning Association | 황의정 | 2017 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Impact-Analyses-of-City-County-Consolidation-on-in-%ED%99%A9%EC%9D%98%EC%A0%95-%EC%9A%B0%EB%AA%85%EC%A0%9C/f725b12701c6e36f607e229eafa915676b02a7b0

The economic impact of city–county consolidations: a synthetic control approach

“The results from the three cases explored indicate that consolidation does not guarantee development and actually can have negative effects. Additionally, consolidation can deepen the urban-rural divide by accelerating the decline of rural populations relative to those of urban areas. The effects vary based upon the county, time horizon and development measure.

The results are robust to placebo test simulations and counterfactuals constructed only from counties with earlier failed consolidation attempts. Our results highlight how public choice considerations surrounding the implementation of governmental consolidations are crucial to outcomes and can help inform any subsequent city–county consolidation attempts.”

Although more rapid development is a primary motivation behind city–county consolidations, few empirical studies explore the impact of consolidation on economic development. No studies look at government consolidation in the United States using modern causal inference methods. We use the synthetic control method to examine the long-term impact of city–county consolidations on per capita income, population, and employment.

Published in Public Choice | Joshua C. Hall | 2020 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-economic-impact-of-city%E2%80%93county-consolidations%3A-Hall-Matti/88883ac040397952e26c1d67a3f906de41643b95

Do Municipal Mergers Reduce Costs? Evidence from a German Federal State

“We find significant reductions in (administrative) expenditures after compulsory mergers. Voluntary mergers, on the other hand, have no effect on expenditures. We also show that the effects of voluntary and compulsory mergers vary according to further (secondary) characteristics of a merger.”

We study the fiscal consequences of municipal mergers by making use of a largescale merger reform in the German federal state of Brandenburg. This reform, which was implemented from 2001 to 2003, led to a substantial reduction in the number of municipalities. Individual mergers were heterogeneous across a number of dimensions, which allows us to contribute to the literature by exploring the consequences of different types of mergers within the same institutional setting. Focusing in particular on the distinction between compulsory and (semi-) voluntary mergers, we implement a difference-in-difference design with panel data from 1995-2010 at the level of post-merger municipalities.

Published in Urban & Transnational Anthropology eJournal | Sebastian Blesse | 2013 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Do-Municipal-Mergers-Reduce-Costs-Evidence-from-a-Blesse-Baskaran/61a4430515864c1394aa25b48a660522f690678f

Economies of Scale in Municipal Administration. Empirical Analyses of Municipal Mergers

“In an exploratory application for four municipal mergers, we find no evidence for increasing economies of scale. Compared to the level prior to the mergers, average current expenditure for the municipal administration increased more than in a control group of similar municipalities that did not merge.”

Economies of scale in municipal administration are an important argument in the discussion on municipal mergers. However, they are seldom studied empirically. It is suggested here to analyse advantages of scale by municipal mergers. This procedure has a favorable feature compared to previous cross-section analyses, because the number of inhabitants appointed to an administration is immediately increased, whereas the conditions of production are largely unchanged.

Published in Swiss Political Science Review | Simon Lüchinger | 2002 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Economies-of-Scale-in-Municipal-Administration.-of-L%C3%BCchinger-Stutzer/bfff29fd3f4d9dcaf68bf0a8e72f8872e1fe468e

Impact of municipal mergers on local population growth: an assessment of the merger of Japanese municipalities

“By employing propensity score-matching, it is found that, in Japan, municipal mergers negatively affect population growth for municipalities if they are not the largest municipalities among their merging partners.

This finding suggests that not all pre-merger areas benefit from municipal mergers; rather, smaller municipalities are likely to incur considerable costs from municipal mergers.”

Municipal mergers have been widely used as a tool for administrative reform at the municipal level in various countries. While there are many studies of such reform initiatives, most have overlooked the issue of the unequal distribution of merger benefits among merged municipalities. This article responds to this research gap by assessing the impact of municipal mergers on local population growth in Japan – and, in doing so, appreciates that mergers differ within each of the merger partners, and also that the extent to which pre-merger municipalities can benefit from municipal mergers is contingent on their size relative to that of their merging partners. A unique dataset of Japanese local governments both pre-merger and post-merger facilitates an analysis of the impact of municipal mergers on local population growth.

Published in Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration | Kohei Suzuki | 2016 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Impact-of-municipal-mergers-on-local-population-an-Suzuki-Sakuwa/17bf33b2cbd432139cf6b3371217d3c6e51693ba

Environmental Effects of City–County Mergers in China: Strengthening Governance or Aggravating Pollution?

“First, the city–county mergers significantly reduce the environmental pollution of merged cities. The robustness tests support this conclusion.

Second, the effects of city–county mergers on environmental pollution control decrease with the increase in geographical distance between the merged cities and counties; the smaller the differences in economic strength of merged cities and counties, the better the coordinated control of environmental pollution; the environmental governance effects of merged cities in the eastern region are lower than those in the central and western regions.

Third, by intensifying the vertical management of urban environmental protection agencies, unified urban planning and fiscal centralization, the city–county mergers can strengthen the overall environmental governance capabilities of merged cities, reduce the negative effects of urbanization, and ultimately improve the environmental quality.”

Green and high-quality development is the focus of China’s urban development strategy in the new era. The city–county merger policy has been one of several powerful tools used by the Chinese government to promote urbanization in recent decades, but whether and how it influences the environment has been rarely discussed. Using the multi-period difference-in-differences method and urban panel datasets, we investigated the environmental effects of the city–county merger policy in China from 2000–2016 and obtained the following results.

Published in Sustainability | Zhiying Cao | 2022 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Environmental-Effects-of-City%E2%80%93County-Mergers-in-or-Cao-Wang/3d7e8ec92fdca559455e828408bc4a0fc4a2c2c3

Municipal amalgamations and the quality of public services: A study based on city-county mergers in China

“The results indicate that, after controlling for other factors, city-county mergers have increased the quality of public services by 1.2%. A placebo test has validated the robustness of this positive effect. Through further tests, the paper finds that the policy has positively affected all three aspects of the quality of public services in China: education, health care, and transport infrastructure, with the greatest impact being on education.”

Municipal amalgamation is one of the core policy tools for Chinese government intervention in urbanization. The city-county merger policy provides a valuable research object for examining whether government-led urban expansion improves the quality of public services. By using city panel data from 2003 to 2019, this paper examines the policy effects of city-county mergers on the quality of public services using the Propensity Score Matching-Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) model.

Using a case study of a city-county merger in the Fenghua District of Ningbo, this paper depicts the transmission mechanism and argues that the policy affects the quality of public services by providing institutional security (financial and administrative power) and promoting regional integration in the new city area.

Published in PLoS ONE | Zi-Ying Mao | 2022 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Municipal-amalgamations-and-the-quality-of-public-A-Mao-Wang/22103d772f64ece2c767a28ec622d8b8fda3dfc4
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