DOES MUNICIPAL SIZE IMPACT MUNICIPAL PERFORMANCE?
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Proceedings of the 1st International Conference Fiscal Dialog 2017 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://fidi.cz/_files/200000186-e9f88eaf75/Proceedings%20FIDI%202017.pdf |
| Keywords | local self-government; fragmentation; economies of scale; optimum size |
| Description | This paper has two goals. The first one (literature review part) is to summarise the arguments for and against a fragmented territorial structure on the local level. The second one (analytical part) is to assess the reality of the existence of “economies of scale” on the level of local selfgovernments - to examine whether local government expenditures increase or decrease with population size on the base of the Czech data. The results from the literature review indicate that the territorial fragmentation has many supporters and detractors, however, the results from all existing analyses are inconclusive. The decision on the size of the municipality seems to be also more a political issue than an economic one. The results of the analysis seem to confirm two core facts, established by most previous studies – the cost curves have different shapes for different local services and functions, with different minimums and the fact that not all local public services and functions can be connected with economies of scale. However, the fact that cost curves are “inconclusive” does not mean that the existence of many too small municipalities (like in the Czech Republic) should not be somehow reflected |