Why some local governments choose not to free-ride when undergoing boundary reform: a study of two merger cases in Poland

Paweł Swianiewicz and Katarzyna Szmigiel-Rawska

Local Government Studies, 2021, vol. 47, issue 4, 546-567

Abstract: One of the side effects of municipal territorial reforms is the common-pool problem. The problem arises when the costs of an activity that benefits a small entity are borne by a larger entity. A review of existing empirical studies suggests that although the common-pool problem has been identified in all investigated cases, it has not as yet been sufficiently analysed and understood. This article focuses on two voluntary mergers in Poland. The authors test the impact of the merger decision on the pre-merger level of capital spending and debt. The analysis is based on a quasi-experimental design using Synthetic Control method. The paper identifies factors explaining why the behaviour of the analysed merging municipalities differs from the results of earlier studies. The most important finding is that the mechanism preventing common resources hoarding is effective when local rules are applied to the merger.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03003930.2020.1761337 (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:flgsxx:v:47:y:2021:i:4:p:546-567

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/flgs20

DOI: 10.1080/03003930.2020.1761337

Access Statistics for this article

Local Government Studies is currently edited by Helen Hancock

More articles in Local Government Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().