The proposition that amalgamation reforms lead to a common-pool problem is strongly supported; governments are incentivized to overspend before the merger is implemented. However, existing literature helps little in understanding why some governments do not overspend in the pre-merger period, and why hoarders do not overspend more than they do. One explanation hitherto overlooked is the moderating effect of social norms. Two hypotheses regarding the importance of social norms are tested with data from a survey experiment conducted on over 3,000 Norwegian local elected officials. The analysis supports both: Support for hoarding is lower when hoarding is debt-financed than when financed by savings. Support for hoarding is also lower when others in the amalgamation are anticipated not to hoard than when they are. That pre-merger hoarding varies with different levels of social obligations vis-à-vis the amalgamation has implications for common-pool theory and for reformers of the structure of government.
AskimJosteinBlom-HansenJensHoulbergKurtSerritzlewSøren. 2020. “How Government Agencies React to Termination Threats.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory30 (2): 324–38. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muz022.
2.
AskimJosteinHoulbergKurtKlausenJan Erling. 2021. “Fiscal Easing in Local Governments Facing Potential Merger: Visible in Budgets or Hidden in Overruns?” Public Administration (Early View), https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12781.
BaekgaardMartinSerritzlewSøren. 2016. “Interpreting Performance Information: Motivated Reasoning or Unbiased Comprehension.” Public Administration Review76 (1): 73–82. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12406.
5.
BaldersheimHaraldRoseLawrence E. 2011. Norway: The Decline of Subnational Democracy?. The Oxford Handbook of Local and Regional Democracy in Europe.
6.
BarabasJasonJeritJennifer. 2010. “Are Survey Experiments Externally Valid?” American Political Science Review104 (2): 226–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055410000092.
7.
BhattiYosefHansenKasper M.OlsenAsmus Leth. 2013. “Political Hypocrisy: The Effect of Political Scandals on Candidate Evaluations.” Acta Politica48 (4): 408–28. https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2013.6.
8.
BlesseSebastianHeinemannFriedrich. 2020. “Citizens’ Trade-Offs in State Merger Decisions: Evidence from a Randomized Survey Experiment.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization180: 438–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2020.10.018.
9.
Blom-HansenJens. 2010. “Municipal Amalgamations and Common Pool Problems: The Danish Local Government Reform in 2007.” Scandinavian Political Studies33 (1): 51–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2009.00239.x.
10.
Blom-HansenJensHoulbergKurtSerritzlewSørenTreismanDaniel. 2016. “Jurisdiction Size and Local Government Policy Expenditure: Assessing the Effect of Municipal Amalgamation.” American Political Science Review110 (4): 812–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055416000320.
11.
BråsteinMari R. 2018. “Nå eller aldri. En casestudie av økonomiske disposisjoner i forkant av kommunesammenslåing.” MA thesis, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo.
12.
ButlerAlexFauverLarryMortalSandra. 2009. “Corruption, Political Connections, and Municipal Finance.” Review of Financial Studies22 (7): 2873–905. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhp010.
13.
CeuninckKoenraadValckeTonyVerhelstTom. 2018. “Local Government Outside Local Boundaries. Rescaling Municipalities, Redesigning Provinces and Local Level Europeanization.” In The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government, edited by KerleyRichardLiddleJoyceDunningPamela T., 377–93. London: Routledge.
14.
ColeDaniel H.McGinnisMichael D.. 2017. “Introduction to Volume 3.” In Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School of Political Economy: Volume 3, A Framework for Policy Analysis, edited by ColeDaniel H.McGinnisMichael D., XIII–XXXII. Lanham, MA: Lexington.
15.
FritzBenediktFeldLars. 2015. The Political Economy of Municipal Amalgamation Evidence of Common Pool Effects and Local Public Debt. Munich: CESifo GmbH.
16.
GainesBrian J.KuklinskiJames H.QuirkPaul J.. 2007. “The Logic of the Survey Experiment Reexamined.” Political Analysis15 (1): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpl008.
17.
GendźwiłłAdamKurniewiczAnnaSwianiewiczPawel. 2021. “The Impact of Municipal Territorial Reforms on the Economic Performance of Local Governments. A Systematic Review of Quasi-Experimental Studies.” Space and Polity25 (1): 37–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2020.1747420.
18.
HansenSune W. 2014. “Common Pool Size and Project Size: An Empirical Test on Expenditures Using Danish Municipal Mergers.” Public Choice159 (1): 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-012-0009-y.
19.
HansenSune W. 2019. “Exploiting the Common Pool or Looking to the Future? A Study of Free-Riding Leading up to the 2007 Municipal Amalgamations in Denmark.” Local Government Studies45 (5): 676–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2019.1586673.
20.
HardinGarrett. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science (New York, N.Y.)162 (3859): 1243–48.
21.
HarjunenOskariSaarimaaTuukkaTukiainenJanne. 2021. “Political Representation and Effects of Municipal Mergers.” Political Science Research and Methods9 (1): 72–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2019.17.
22.
HinnerichBjörn T. 2009. “Do Merging Local Governments Free Ride on their Counterparts When Facing Boundary Reform?” Journal of Public Economics93 (5/6): 721–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2009.01.003.
23.
HirotaHarukaiYunoueHideo. 2017. “Evaluation of the Fiscal Effect on Municipal Mergers: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Japanese Municipal Data.” Regional Science and Urban Economics66 (1): 132–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2017.05.010.
24.
HoulbergK.2014. “David og Goliat i Kassen før Lukketid – Danske Kommuners Likviditets- og Gældsudvikling op til Kommunesammenlægningerne i 2007.” Politica46 (2): 237–57. https://doi.org/10.7146/politica.v46i2.70017.
25.
JilkeSebastian R.Van RyzinGregg G.. 2017. “Survey Experiments for Public Management Research.” In Experiments in Public Management Research, edited by JamesOliverJilkeSebastian R.Van RyzinGregg G., 117–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
26.
JordahlHenrikLiangChe-Yuan. 2010. “Merged Municipalities, Higher Debt: On Free-Riding and the Common Pool Problem in Politics.” Public Choice143 (1/2): 157–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-009-9495-y.
LadnerAndreasKeufferNicolasBaldersheimHarald. 2016. “Measuring Local Autonomy in 39 Countries, 1990–2014.” Regional & Federal Studies26 (3): 321–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/13597566.2016.1214911.
30.
MarchJames G.1994. A Primer on Decision-Making. New York: Free Press.
31.
MarchJames G.OlsenJohan P.. 2009. “The Logic of Appropriateness.” In The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy, edited by GoodinRobert E.MoranMichaelReinMartin, 689–708. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199548453.003.0034.
32.
McGarveyNeilStewartFraser. 2018. “The Role of the Councillor.” In The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government, edited by KerleyRichardLiddleJoyceDunningPamela T., 54–69. London: Routledge.
33.
MigchelbrinkKoenVan de WalleSteven. 2019. “When Will Public Officials Listen? A Vignette Experiment on the Effects of Input Legitimacy on Public Officials’ Willingness to Use Public Participation.” Public Administration Review80 (2): 271–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13138.
34.
MouritzenPoul ErikSvaraJames H.. 2002. Leadership at the Apex: Politicians and Administrators in Western Local Governments. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
35.
MughanSian. 2019. “When Do Municipal Consolidations Reduce Government Expenditures? Evidence on the Role of Local Involvement.” Public Administration Review79 (2): 180–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13032.
36.
MutzDiana C.2011. Population-Based Survey Experiments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
37.
MutzDiana C.PemantleRobinPhamPhilip. 2019. “The Perils of Balance Testing in Experimental Design: Messy Analyses of Clean Data.” The American Statistician73 (1): 32–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2017.1322143.
38.
NakazawaKatsuyoshi. 2018. “Free Rider Behaviour Under Voluntary Amalgamation: The Case of Setting the Long-Term Care Insurance Premium in Japan.” Papers in Regional Science97 (4): 1409–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/pirs.12312.
OstromElinor. 1990. Governing the Commons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
41.
OstromElinor. 2000. “Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives14 (3): 137–58.
42.
PoteeteAmy R.2015. “Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.” In The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Public Policy and Administration, edited by LodgeMartinPageEdward C.BallaSteven J., 529–540. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199646135.013.29.
43.
ReingewertzYanivSerritzlewSøren. 2019. “Special Issue on Municipal Amalgamations: Guest Editors’ Introduction.” Local Government Studies45 (5): 603–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2019.1615465.
44.
SaarimaaTukkaTukiainenJanne. 2015. “Common Pool Problems in Voluntary Municipal Mergers.” European Journal of Political Economy38 (1): 140–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.02.006.
45.
StrebelMichael A. 2018. “Incented Voluntary Municipal Mergers as a Two-Stage Process: Evidence from the Swiss Canton of Fribourg.” Urban Affairs Review54 (2): 267–301. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1078087416651935.
46.
SwianiewiczPawel. 2018. “If Territorial Fragmentation is a Problem, is Amalgamation a Solution? – Ten Years Later.” Local Government Studies44 (1): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2017.1403903.
47.
TavaresAntonio. F. 2018. “Municipal Amalgamations and their Effects: A Literature Review.” Miscellanea Geographica22 (1): 5–15. https://doi.org/10.2478/mgrsd-2018-0005.
48.
van WitteloostuijnArjenBoinArjenKofmanClestaKuilmanJeroenKuipersSanneke. 2018. “Explaining the Survival of Public Organizations: Applying Density Dependence Theory to a Population of US Federal Agencies.” Public Administration96 (4): 633–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12524.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
