IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/albaec/2009_018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Too Many Municipalities?

Author

Listed:
  • Dahlby, Bev

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

Abstract

Does democracy lead to the creation of too many municipalities? We analyze this issue within the context of the Alesina and Spolare (1996) model where the quality of municipal services deteriorates with the distance from the center of a municipality. Individuals can vote in a referendum to split an existing municipality. We show that social welfare will decline when municipalities are split if the level of the public service, as chosen by the median voter, is lower in the new smaller municipalities. In general, the model indicates that there may be a democratic bias in favour of creating too many municipalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Dahlby, Bev, 2009. "Too Many Municipalities?," Working Papers 2009-18, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2009_018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~econwps/2009/wp2009-18.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    2. Epple, Dennis & Romer, Thomas, 1989. "On the flexibility of municipal boundaries," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 307-319, November.
    3. Goyal, Sanjeev & Staal, Klaas, 2004. "The political economy of regionalism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 563-593, June.
    4. Anna Bogomolnaia & Michel Breton & Alexei Savvateev & Shlomo Weber, 2008. "Stability of jurisdiction structures under the equal share and median rules," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 34(3), pages 525-543, March.
    5. Patrick Bolton & Gérard Roland, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-1090.
    6. Haimanko, Ori & Le Breton, Michel & Weber, Shlomo, 2004. "Voluntary formation of communities for the provision of public projects," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 1-34, March.
    7. Carey, Malachy & Srinivasan, Ashok & Strauss, Robert P., 1996. "Optimal consolidation of municipalities: An analysis of alternative designs," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 103-119, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:fgv:epgrbe:v:67:n:3:a:4 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Ponczek, Vladimir & Mattos, Enlison, 2013. "Efeitos da Divisão Municipal na oferta de Bens Públicos e Indicadores Sociais," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 67(3), September.

    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. Musatov, D. & Savvateev, A., 2022. "Mathematical models of stable jurisdiction partitions: A survey of results and new directions," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 54(2), pages 12-38.
    2. Ponczek, Vladimir & Mattos, Enlison, 2013. "Efeitos da Divisão Municipal na oferta de Bens Públicos e Indicadores Sociais," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 67(3), September.
    3. repec:fgv:epgrbe:v:67:n:3:a:4 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Drèze, Jacques & Le Breton, Michel & Savvateev, Alexei & Weber, Shlomo, 2008. ""Almost" subsidy-free spatial pricing in a multi-dimensional setting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 275-291, November.
    6. Rajashri Chakrabarti, 2005. "Gains from a Redrawing of Political Boundaries: Evidence from State Reorganization in India," Others 0512002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2015. "Political economy of fiscal unions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 147-157.
    8. Enrico Spolaore, 2016. "The economics of political borders," Chapters, in: Eugene Kontorovich & Francesco Parisi (ed.), Economic Analysis of International Law, chapter 1, pages 11-43, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Rohner, Dominic & Esteban, Joan & Flamand, Sabine & Morelli, Massimo, 2018. "A Dynamic Theory of Secession," CEPR Discussion Papers 12398, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Thierry Madiès & Grégoire Rota-Grasiozi & Jean-Pierre Tranchant & Cyril Trépier, 2018. "The economics of secession: a review of legal, theoretical, and empirical aspects," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-18, December.
    11. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2009. "On the Strategic Use of Representative Democracy in International Agreements," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(2), pages 281-296, April.
    12. Flamand, Sabine, 2019. "Partial decentralization as a way to prevent secessionist conflict," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 159-178.
    13. Barberà, Salvador & Beviá, Carmen & Ponsatí, Clara, 2015. "Meritocracy, egalitarianism and the stability of majoritarian organizations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 237-257.
    14. Matthias Dahm, 2010. "Free mobility and taste-homogeneity of jurisdiction structures," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 39(1), pages 259-272, March.
    15. Joan-Maria Esteban & Sabine Flamand & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2018. "The Survival and Demise of the State: A Dynamic Theory of Secession," Working Papers 1028, Barcelona School of Economics.
    16. Musatov, Daniil & Savvateev, Alexei & Weber, Shlomo, 2016. "Gale–Nikaido–Debreu and Milgrom–Shannon: Communal interactions with endogenous community structures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 282-303.
    17. Savvateev, A., 2013. "Coalitional Stability of a "Bipolar World"," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 10-43.
    18. Enrico Spolaore, 2010. "Federalism, Regional Redistribution and Country Stability," Chapters, in: Núria Bosch & Marta Espasa & Albert Solé Ollé (ed.), The Political Economy of Inter-Regional Fiscal Flows, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Vanschoonbeek, Jakob, 2020. "Regional (in)stability in Europe a quantitative model of state fragmentation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 605-641.
    20. Enrico Spolaore, 2009. "National Borders, Conflict and Peace," CESifo Working Paper Series 2860, CESifo.
    21. Guido de Blasio & Alberto Dalmazzo & Monica Andini, 2013. "The Size of Political Jurisdictions: Evidence from a Fascist Consolidation," ERSA conference papers ersa13p276, European Regional Science Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    median voter model; fiscal federalism; succession; municipal boundaries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    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:ris:albaec:2009_018. 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: Joseph Marchand (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deualca.html .

    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.