Effects of amalgamations: evidence from Swiss municipalities

Reto Steiner and Claire Kaiser

Public Management Review, 2017, vol. 19, issue 2, 232-252

Abstract: Many OECD countries have amalgamated their municipalities during the last couple of decades. For decisions concerning future territorial rescaling, it is crucial to augment the previously inconclusive evaluative knowledge of the effects of mergers. This paper examines the effects of amalgamations conducted between 1998 and 2009 in the areas of public service delivery, local finance, administrative staff, municipal autonomy and local democracy. The data are obtained from two comprehensive surveys of all local secretaries (top civil servants) in Switzerland in 1998 and 2009. The analysis – based upon a comparison between a quasi-experimental and a control group – (partially) supports the hypothesis of a positive effect on public service delivery, the professionalization of staff and municipal autonomy. The effect on local finance is inconclusive, and negative effects on local democracy are not discovered in the framework of this study.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14719037.2016.1153704 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rpxmxx:v:19:y:2017:i:2:p:232-252

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rpxm20

DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2016.1153704

Access Statistics for this article

Public Management Review is currently edited by Stephen P. Osborne

More articles in Public Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().