Municipal mergers have been widely used as a tool for administrative reform. The goal of most municipal mergers is to increase the efficiency of service provision, but their impact on local democracy has been neglected. In particular, little is known as to how mergers affect performance of local legislatures. In filling these gaps, this study uses a dataset of 754 Japanese city-level governments from 2008 to 2014 to examine how mergers influence legislative performance. After controlling for potential confounding factors, the analysis shows that municipal merger is negatively correlated to legislative performance.

A varied set of pressures drive organizational innovation. Among these pressures, demographic shifts seem to boost innovation, as the public sector responds to the arrival of migrants and to community changes in race and ethnic composition. However, we know little about innovation by governments in response to expected population decline. In particular, studies have under‐examined how anticipated demographic pressures prompt public organizations to innovate. This study undertakes this task by arguing that innovation is more visible in municipalities facing greater anticipated demographic decline. However, we also argue for a non‐linear relationship in which too strong and/or too weak expected demographic declines lead to less visible innovation (inverted U‐shape effect). These propositions were tested with a data set of Japanese municipalities and employing a dose–response model. Findings show that anticipated demographic declines directly boost innovation visibility. However, too strong and/or too weak unexpected demographic declines make innovation less visible.

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