Factors Influencing Local Government Cooperation in Rural Areas: Evidence from the Tennessee Valley

Steven Brent Lackey, David Freshwater and Anil Rupasingha
Additional contact information
Steven Brent Lackey: Kentucky Economic Development Cabinet
David Freshwater: University of Kentucky

Economic Development Quarterly, 2002, vol. 16, issue 2, 138-154

Abstract: Various forms of cooperation among local governments have long been advocated as means to aggregate resources and demand in rural areas so that public services and infrastructure can be improved. This research assesses the degree of multicounty collaboration in rural parts of the Tennessee Valley. It uses both a regression model and key informant interviews to establish the factors that stimulate and impede collaboration. Our work finds that while there is considerable collaboration already taking place in the Tennessee Valley Authority region, there are factors, such as a lack of strong advocates for cooperative projects, suspicion of neighboring communities, and differentials in available resources that impede collaboration. Conversely, there are supporting factors, including financial inducements, opportunities for officials to interact, and the presence of a neutral facilitator that can increase the amount of collaboration.

Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891242402016002004 (text/html)

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:sae:ecdequ:v:16:y:2002:i:2:p:138-154

DOI: 10.1177/0891242402016002004

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Development Quarterly
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().