Unrequited metropolitan mergers: suburban rejection of cities in the Norwegian municipal reform

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Abstract

The administrative boundaries of the central city almost universally cover a smaller area than its functional boundaries. Hence, central cities often supply public goods beyond their own residents. Mergers with neighbouring municipalities offer an opportunity for central cities to internalize more of these externalities. However, suburban municipalities have few incentives to support such mergers. The 2014–17 Norwegian voluntary municipal merger programme offers a rare opportunity for large-scale empirical evidence on the preferences of central cities and suburbs over mergers. The paper examines the merger decisions made by municipalities in all metropolitan areas in Norway. Central cities were much more interested in merging than suburban municipalities: while the central cities wanted to merge with a total of 75 suburban municipalities, only 15 suburbs accepted. Differences between central cities and suburbs in political preferences (such as support for anti-reform parties) or the quality of government cannot explain this. While low suburban population size and central city taxes have some impact, by far the main predictor of merger preferences is whether the municipality is a suburb or the central city. While central cities want to internalize the inter-jurisdictional spillovers from their public goods production, suburbs prefer to continue free riding.

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APA

Fitjar, R. D. (2021). Unrequited metropolitan mergers: suburban rejection of cities in the Norwegian municipal reform. Territory, Politics, Governance, 9(1), 17–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2019.1602076

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