Citizens’ support for inter-municipal cooperation: evidence from a survey in the German state of Hesse

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. AbstractInter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is promoted as a way in which small, fiscally weak municipalities can cope with intensified interregional competition and demographic change. We provide first evidence on citizens' support for IMC using survey data from rural Germany. We cover different fields of public services and find the support for IMC to be lower for services where IMC implies intensified interaction with citizens from neighboring municipalities. The main research question asks whether citizens' support for IMC is larger in municipalities that can -by the logic of normative theory -expect higher net benefits from IMC. The answer is largely negative: While support for IMC decreases in the travel-time to neighboring municipalities, we do not find the support for IMC to be higher among citizens in small and/or fiscally weak municipalities, nor do we find the available of suitable partners to matter. At the same time, citizens' policy preferences strongly depends on individual-level factors. Believing that IMC reduces citizens' influence and control reduces the support for IMC substantially. Trust in local politicians and a high degree of emotional attachment to the home municipality reduce citizens' support for IMC. JEL: H77, D72

Citizens’ Trade-offs in State Merger Decisions: Evidence from a Randomized Survey Experiment

“…For the case of inter-municipal cooperation the German state of Hesse,Bergholz and Bischoff (2019) analyze survey data that indicate that support for cooperation is weaker for respondents that have high trust in their local government, a finding that supports our expectation.…”

“…Brink (2004) andLapointe (2018) find that preference heterogeneity matters for popular decisions on splits, too Lapointe (2018). finds that voters are willing to pay additional taxes to live in their jurisdiction of choice.4 In a related study,Bergholz & Bischoff (2019) recently study the determinants on attitudes towards intermunicipal cooperation using a survey of local citizens in the German state of Hesse.…”

Citizens' Attitudes Towards Municipal Mergers – Individual‐level Explanations

“…Higher education per se also gives citizens better capacity to learn about a merger and therefore to better assess its potential benefits and negatives. Bergholz andBischoff (2019, 1275) indeed found that both income and education affected being supportive of municipal co-operation.…”

“…In smaller communities and municipalities the distance between voters and politicians is smaller and social ties can often be shortcuts into influencing politics. Thus, a proposed merger into a larger jurisdiction would increase the distance between the voters and representatives, both physically and socially (Bergholz & Bischoff 2019). This might induce concerns among citizens about their ability to have a say about matters in the merged larger municipality and might therefore lead to more negative opinions on a proposed municipal merger.…”

Local council members’ view on intermunicipal cooperation: does office-related self-interest matter?

“…Accordingly, IMC increases their frequency interaction with people outside their peer group and thus causes utility losses among citizens who prefer to interact with their peers only (e.g., Brasington, 2003;Alesina et al, 2004). Thus, citizens are more reluctant to support IMC in these fields (e.g., Norris, 2001;Bergholz and Bischoff, 2016).…”