Does urban sprawl increase the costs of providing local public services? Evidence from Spanish municipalities

Albert Solé-Ollé () and Miriam Hortas Rico ()
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Albert Solé-Ollé: Universitat de Barcelona & IEB
Miriam Hortas Rico: Universitat de Barcelona & IEB
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Miriam Hortas-Rico

No 2008/6, Working Papers from Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB)

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of urban sprawl, a phenomenon of particular interest in Spain, which is currently experiencing this process of rapid, low-density urban expansion. Many adverse consequences are attributed to urban sprawl (e.g., traffic congestion, air pollution and social segregation), though here we are concerned primarily with the rising costs of providing local public services. Our initial aim is to develop an accurate measure of urban sprawl so that we might empirically test its impact on municipal budgets. Then, we undertake an empirical analysis using a cross-sectional data set of 2,500 Spanish municipalities for the year 2003 and a piecewise linear function to account for the potentially nonlinear relationship between sprawl and local costs. The estimations derived from the expenditure equations for both aggregate and six disaggregated spending categories indicate that low-density development patterns lead to greater provision costs of local public services.

Keywords: Urban sprawl; local public spending. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H1 H72 R51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Does Urban Sprawl Increase the Costs of Providing Local Public Services? Evidence from Spanish Municipalities (2010)
Working Paper: Does urban sprawl increase the costs of providing local public services? Evidence from Spanish municipalities (2008)
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