IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ipu/wpaper/111.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does inter-municipal cooperation increase efficiency? Evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Giuseppe Gori

    (Istituto Regionale di Programmazione Economica della Toscana - IRPET)

  • Patrizia Lattarulo

    (Istituto Regionale di Programmazione Economica della Toscana - IRPET)

  • Francesco Porcelli

    (Università degli Studi di Bari-Aldo Moro)

  • Leonzio Rizzo

    (Università degli Studi di Ferrara & IEB)

  • Riccardo Secomandi

    (Università degli Studi di Ferrara)

Abstract

Evidence on the impact of municipal amalgamation and cooperation is mixed and most of the existing literature is focused on the effect on the cost per capita, which, however, is not sufficient to test for a potential increase in efficiency. Therefore, the evaluation of the impact on the physical output of municipal services is needed. This is why we use a panel dataset with all Italian municipalities, covering four years, with details on expenditure and output related to six different local services provided by municipalities. The first novelty of our work is including the local service dimension in the analysis. This dimension is extremely important to properly evaluate the impact of inter-municipal cooperation, which, differently from amalgamation, usually covers only some specific services. In our analysis, we exploit the fact that municipalities choose to enter a municipal association at different years. Therefore, we evaluate the impact of intermunicipal cooperation on per-capita expenditure and output by using the within variation in each municipality and municipal service. The second novelty is the use of specific indexes of direct output for the provided services. We find that inter-municipal cooperation decreases per capita expenditure leaving output unchanged, thus generating an increase in efficiency. Interestingly, when we concentrate the analysis on small municipalities with less than 3,000 inhabitants, inter- municipal cooperation leads also to increase in output. We conclude that inter-municipal cooperation is extremely relevant in sorting out financial constraints of small municipalities when they need to provide services with high fixed costs. This result is particularly important in Italy where 56% of municipalities has less than 3,000 inhabitants. The effect is more pronounced as the number of associated municipalities increases and when there is at least one big municipality in the association.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuseppe Gori & Patrizia Lattarulo & Francesco Porcelli & Leonzio Rizzo & Riccardo Secomandi, 2023. "Does inter-municipal cooperation increase efficiency? Evidence from Italy," Working papers 111, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipu:wpaper:111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.siepweb.it/siep/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/SIEP-WP_777_Rizzo_7-23.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Quentin Frère & Matthieu Leprince & Sonia Paty, 2014. "The Impact of Intermunicipal Cooperation on Local Public Spending," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(8), pages 1741-1760, June.
    2. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    3. Blaeschke, Frédéric & Haug, Peter, 2014. "Does Intermunicipal Cooperation Increase Efficiency? Evidence from the Hessian Wastewater Sector," IWH Discussion Papers 11/2014, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    4. E. Dijkgraaf & R. H. J. M. Gradus, 2013. "Cost advantage cooperations larger than private waste collectors," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(7), pages 702-705, May.
    5. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    6. Maarten A. Allers & J. Bieuwe Geertsema, 2016. "The Effects Of Local Government Amalgamation On Public Spending, Taxation, And Service Levels: Evidence From 15 Years Of Municipal Consolidation," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 659-682, September.
    7. Athey, Susan & Imbens, Guido W., 2022. "Design-based analysis in Difference-In-Differences settings with staggered adoption," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(1), pages 62-79.
    8. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    9. Maarten A. Allers & J.A. de Greef, 2018. "Intermunicipal cooperation, public spending and service levels," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 127-150, January.
    10. Revelli, Federico, 2003. "Reaction or interaction? Spatial process identification in multi-tiered government structures," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 29-53, January.
    11. Venturini, Fiorenza, 2020. "The unintended composition effect of the subnational government fiscal rules: The case of Italian municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    12. Massimiliano Ferraresi & Giuseppe Migali & Leonzio Rizzo, 2018. "Does intermunicipal cooperation promote efficiency gains? Evidence from Italian municipal unions," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(5), pages 1017-1044, November.
    13. A. Smith, Jeffrey & E. Todd, Petra, 2005. "Does matching overcome LaLonde's critique of nonexperimental estimators?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 305-353.
    14. Blesse, Sebastian & Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2016. "Do municipal mergers reduce costs? Evidence from a German federal state," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 54-74.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clémence Tricaud, 2021. "Better Alone? Evidence on the Costs of Intermunicipal Cooperation," Working Papers hal-03380333, HAL.
    2. Marco Di Cataldo & Licia Ferranna & Margherita Gerolimetto & Stefano Magrini, 2023. "Splitting Up or Dancing Together? Local Institutional Structure and the Performance of Urban Areas," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 99(1), pages 81-110, January.
    3. repec:hal:journl:hal-03380333 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Pengju Zhang, 2023. "The fiscal and economic impacts of municipal dissolution: evidence from New York," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(4), pages 948-1001, August.
    5. Bhattacharjee, Arnab & Aravena, Claudia & Castillo, Natalia & Ehrlich, Marco & Taou, Nadia & Wagner, Thomas, 2022. "Agroforestry Programs in the Colombian Amazon: Selection, Treatment and Exposure Effects on Deforestation," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 537, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    6. Kayaoglu, Aysegul, 2022. "Do refugees cause crime?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    7. Alexander Karaivanov & Dongwoo Kim & Shih En Lu & Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2022. "COVID-19 vaccination mandates and vaccine uptake," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(12), pages 1615-1624, December.
    8. OKUDAIRA Hiroko & TAKIZAWA Miho & YAMANOUCHI Kenta, 2022. "Does Employee Downsizing Work? Evidence from Product Innovation at Manufacturing Plants," Discussion papers 22015, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    9. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    10. Ricardo Dahis & Christiane Szerman, 2023. "Decentralizing Development: Evidence from Government Splits," Monash Economics Working Papers 2023-18, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    11. Clò, Stefano & Frigerio, Marco & Vandone, Daniela, 2022. "Financial support to innovation: The role of European development financial institutions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    12. Pinotti, Paolo & Bhalotra, Sonia & Britto, Diogo & Sampaio, Breno, 2021. "Job Displacement, Unemployment Benefits and Domestic Violence," CEPR Discussion Papers 16350, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Brice Fabre & Marc Sangnier, 2022. "Where do politicians send pork? Evidence from central government transfers to French municipalities," DeFiPP Working Papers 2202, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    14. Solomon, Keisha T. & Dasgupta, Kabir, 2022. "State mental health insurance parity laws and college educational outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    15. Lin, Lihua & Zhang, Zhengyu, 2022. "Interpreting the coefficients in dynamic two-way fixed effects regressions with time-varying covariates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    16. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D’Haultfœuille, 2023. "Two-way fixed effects and differences-in-differences with heterogeneous treatment effects: a survey," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 26(3), pages 1-30.
    17. Liyang Sun & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2022. "A Linear Panel Model with Heterogeneous Coefficients and Variation in Exposure," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 193-204, Fall.
    18. Caroline Chuard & Patrick Chuard‐Keller, 2021. "Baby bonus in Switzerland: Effects on fertility, newborn health, and birth‐scheduling," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 2092-2123, September.
    19. Wu, Jianxian & Nie, Xin & Wang, Han & Li, Weijuan, 2023. "Eco-industrial parks and green technological progress: Evidence from Chinese cities," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    20. Baker, Andrew C. & Larcker, David F. & Wang, Charles C.Y., 2022. "How much should we trust staggered difference-in-differences estimates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 370-395.
    21. Sonia Paty & Morgan Ubeda, 2021. "Inter-municipal cooperation and the provision of local public goods," Working Papers 2121, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ipu:wpaper:111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Monica Bozzano (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.