Municipal amalgamation reforms are performed in most developed countries. The basic rationale for these reforms is taking advantage of economies of scale in municipal provision of public services. Contrary to theory and common wisdom, empirical literature finds almost no benefits arising from an amalgamation. This literature, however, relies on scant evidence. The purpose of this paper is to present evidence for the budgetary outcomes of municipal amalgamations. The study is based on an extensive panel data of municipalities in Israel for the years 1999-2007. The evaluation uses the amalgamation reform of 2003 analyzed with the difference in differences methodology in order to assess changes in the budgetary situation of the amalgamated municipalities. The results indicate that the amalgamations resulted in a decrease of about 8% in municipal expenditures. I find no evidence of a decrease in the level of services in the amalgamated municipalities. The results suggest that municipal amalgamations bring economies of scale into practice.

This book compares the trajectories and effects of local public sector reform in Europe and fills a research gap that has existed so far in comparative public administration and local government studies. Based on the results of COST research entitled, ‘Local Public Sector Reforms: an International Comparison’, this volume takes a European-scale approach, examining local government in 28 countries. Local government has been the most seriously affected by the continuously expanding global financial crisis and austerity policies in some countries, and is experiencing a period of increased reform activity as a result. This book considers both those local governments which have adopted or moved away from New Public Management (NPM) modernization to ‘something different’ (what some commentators have labelled ‘post-NPM’), as well as those which have implemented ‘other-than-NPM measures’, such as territorial reforms and democratic innovations.

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of territorial change on the municipal level across all European countries. Taking a thematic and comparative perspective, the book builds on extensive quantitative data and a large survey of academic experts in 33 European countries. Territorial organisation of the municipal level in Europe is strongly diversified and yet far from stable. Politically speaking, territorial reforms tend to be risky and difficult, as such changes affect vital interests and identities. Despite such difficulties, the last two decades have witnessed considerable changes in territorial divisions at the municipal level across a range of European countries. In this book, the authors describe and analyse these changes comprehensively, making a vital contribution to understanding the reasons and dynamics of territorial reform processes. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in local or sub-national government, institutional design and more broadly to political science, public administration/policy, human geography, sociology and economics.

This paper uses the Swedish municipal amalgamation reform of 1952 to study the common pool problem in politics. The amalgams were common pools and the municipalities had incentives to free-ride on their amalgam partners by increasing debt prior to amalgamation. We find that municipalities that merged in 1952 increased their debt between 1948 and 1952 when the reform could be anticipated. The increase amounted to 52% of new debt issued or 1.5% of total revenues in the merged municipalities. But contrary to the “law of 1/n”, free-riding did not increase in common pool size.

How large should local governments be, and what are the implications of changing the scale of local governments for the quality of local democracy? These questions have stood at the centre of debates among scholars and public sector reformers alike fro