Fragmentation and the growth of local government

Mark Schneider

Public Choice, 1986, vol. 48, issue 3, 255-263

Abstract: An assumption of the post-World War II metropolitan reform movement was that fragmentation of metropolitan regions into multiple local governments was wasteful and inefficient, increasing the cost and size of government. More recently, ‘polycentrists’ have argued that the competition between multiple governments in metropolitan regions can in factreduce the growth in government by providing a competitive check on the excessive demands of local bureaucrats for more resources. In this article, I explore the effects of fragmentation on growth in the size of suburban municipal government budgets and in the number of services offered. Competition inherent in more fragmented metropolitan regions is shown to slow the expansion in local government expenditures and service levels. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1986

Date: 1986
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DOI: 10.1007/BF00051622

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