IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-01098777.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Local government cooperation at work: A control function approach

Author

Listed:
  • Zineb Abidi

    (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Edoardo Di Porto

    (University of Naples Federico II = Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II)

  • Angela Parenti

    (IMT Institute of Advanced Studies)

  • Sonia Paty

    (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

.We analyze voluntary coalition formation using a unique panel data for 1,056 municipalities in the French region of Brittany between 1995 and 2002. We use a control function approach to develop a binary discrete choice model with spatial interactions. We find that a municipality's decision to cooperate over the provision local public goods depends on the decisions of its neighbours. Comparison with spatial econometrics models (SAR and Durbin) shows that the decision to cooperate is over estimated by these more traditional models. The results are in line with the recent applied spatial economics literature but are derived for a discrete choice model setting.

Suggested Citation

  • Zineb Abidi & Edoardo Di Porto & Angela Parenti & Sonia Paty, 2014. "Local government cooperation at work: A control function approach," Working Papers halshs-01098777, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01098777
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01098777
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01098777/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel P. McMillen, 2010. "Issues In Spatial Data Analysis," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 119-141, February.
    2. Reingewertz, Yaniv, 2012. "Do municipal amalgamations work? Evidence from municipalities in Israel," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 240-251.
    3. Miceli Thomas J., 1993. "The Decision to Regionalize in the Provision of Education: An Application of the Tiebout Model," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 344-360, May.
    4. Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), 2013. "The Challenge of Local Government Size," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15294.
    5. Stephen Gibbons & Henry G. Overman, 2012. "Mostly Pointless Spatial Econometrics?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 172-191, May.
    6. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    7. Roger B. Myerson, 1977. "Graphs and Cooperation in Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 2(3), pages 225-229, August.
    8. Lyytikäinen, Teemu, 2012. "Tax competition among local governments: Evidence from a property tax reform in Finland," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(7-8), pages 584-595.
    9. Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 2005. "War, peace, and the size of countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(7), pages 1333-1354, July.
    10. Francis Bloch, 1995. "Endogenous Structures of Association in Oligopolies," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(3), pages 537-556, Autumn.
    11. Patrick Bolton & Gérard Roland, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-1090.
    12. Salmon, Pierre, 1987. "Decentralisation as an Incentive Scheme," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 3(2), pages 24-43, Summer.
    13. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    14. Wallace E. Oates, 2006. "On the Theory and Practice of Fiscal Decentralization," Working Papers 2006-05, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    15. Pinkse, Joris & Slade, Margaret E., 1998. "Contracting in space: An application of spatial statistics to discrete-choice models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 125-154, July.
    16. Brasington, David M., 1999. "Joint provision of public goods: the consolidation of school districts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 373-393, September.
    17. Edoardo di Porto & Vincent Merlin & Sonia Paty, 2013. "Cooperation among local governments to deliver public services : a “structural” bivariate response model with fixed effects and endogenous covariate," Working Papers 1304, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    18. Moisio, Antti, 2012. "Rethinking local government: Essays on municipal reform," Research Reports 61, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    20. Elhorst, J. Paul, 2003. "Unconditional maximum likelihood estimation of dynamic models for spatial panels," Research Report 03C27, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    21. Francis Bloch & Santiago Sánchez-Pagés & Raphaël Soubeyran, 2006. "When does universal peace prevail? Secession and group formation in conflict," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 3-29, January.
    22. Jan K. Brueckner, 2003. "Strategic Interaction Among Governments: An Overview of Empirical Studies," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 175-188, April.
    23. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 1995. "Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 25-45, March.
    24. Baik, Kyung Hwan & Shogren, Jason F, 1995. "Competitive-Share Group Formation in Rent-Seeking Contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 83(1-2), pages 113-126, April.
    25. Lorenz Blume & Tillmann Blume, 2007. "The economic effects of local authority mergers: empirical evidence for German city regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 41(3), pages 689-713, September.
    26. Papke, Leslie E. & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2008. "Panel data methods for fractional response variables with an application to test pass rates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 121-133, July.
    27. Rudie Hulst & André Montfort & Arto Haveri & Jenni Airaksinen & Josephine Kelly, 2009. "Institutional Shifts In Inter-Municipal Service Delivery," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 263-285, September.
    28. Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 2006. "Conflict, defense spending, and the number of nations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 91-120, January.
    29. Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2010. "Coalition formation and political decision making: Evidence from Finnish municipal mergers," Working Papers 19, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    30. Rune Sørensen, 2006. "Local government consolidations: The impact of political transaction costs," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 75-95, April.
    31. Eric Weese, 2011. "Political Mergers as Coalition Formation," Working Papers 997, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    32. Lars–Erik Borge & Jørn Rattsø, 2002. "Spending Growth With Vertical Fiscal Imbalance: Decentralized Government Spending In Norway, 1880–1990," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 351-373, November.
    33. repec:dgr:rugsom:03c27 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Thomas Klier & Daniel P. McMillen, 2008. "Evolving Agglomeration In The U.S. Auto Supplier Industry," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 245-267, February.
    35. David M. Brasington, 2003. "Snobbery, Racism, or Mutual Distaste: What Promotes and Hinders Cooperation in Local Public-Good Provision?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 874-883, November.
    36. Tyrefors Hinnerich, Björn, 2009. "Do merging local governments free ride on their counterparts when facing boundary reform?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 721-728, June.
    37. repec:bla:econom:v:70:y:2003:i:280:p:673-690 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2014. "Identifying local tax mimicking with administrative borders and a policy reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 41-51.
    39. Hart, Sergiu & Kurz, Mordecai, 1983. "Endogenous Formation of Coalitions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 1047-1064, July.
    40. Papke, Leslie E., 2005. "The effects of spending on test pass rates: evidence from Michigan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 821-839, June.
    41. Moisio, Antti, 2012. "Rethinking local government: Essays on municipal reform," Research Reports P61, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    42. Gordon, Nora & Knight, Brian, 2009. "A spatial merger estimator with an application to school district consolidation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 752-765, June.
    43. Spolaore, Enrico, 2004. "Is small really so ugly?," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 447-452, November.
    44. Brueckner, Jan K & Follain, James R, 1988. "The Rise and Fall of the ARM: An Econometric Analysis of Mortgage Choice," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(1), pages 93-102, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lapointe, Simon, 2018. "“Love thy neighbour”? The effect of income and language differences on votes for municipal secessions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 229-245.
    2. Haruthai Chenboonthai & Tsunemi Watanabe, 2019. "Cooperation Intensity for Effective Policy Development and Implementation: A Case Study of Thailand’s Alternative Energy Development Plan," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-23, June.
    3. Ivo Bischoff & Eva Wolfschütz, 2021. "Inter-municipal cooperation in administrative tasks – the role of population dynamics and elections," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(4), pages 568-592, July.
    4. Zineb Abidi & Emmanuelle Taugourdeau, 2024. "Tax competition and harmonization where tastes for public goods differ," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(4), pages 953-979, August.
    5. Blesse Sebastian & Rösel Felix, 2017. "Was bringen kommunale Gebietsreformen?: Kausale Evidenz zu Hoffnungen, Risiken und alternativen Instrumenten," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 18(4), pages 307-324, November.
    6. Daniel A. Brent & Katie Lorah, 2017. "The Geography of Civic Crowdfunding: Implications for Social Inequality and Donor-Project Dynamics," Departmental Working Papers 2017-09, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    7. Giampaolo Arachi & Debora Assisi & Berardino Cesi & Michele G. Giuranno & Felice Russo, 2022. "Inter-municipal Cooperation in Public Procurement," CEIS Research Paper 548, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 19 Dec 2022.
    8. Luca, Davide & Modrego, Felix, 2020. "Stronger together? Assessing the causal effect of inter-municipal cooperation on the efficiency of small Italian municipalities," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108193, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Davide Luca & Felix Modrego, 2021. "Stronger together? Assessing the causal effect of inter‐municipal cooperation on the efficiency of small Italian municipalities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 261-293, January.
    10. Jaaidane, Touria & Larribeau, Sophie, 2023. "The effects of inter-municipal cooperation and central grant allocation on the size of the French local public sector," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    11. Marco Di Cataldo & Licia Ferranna & Margherita Gerolimetto & Stefano Magrini, 2023. "Splitting Up or Dancing Together? Local Institutional Structure and the Performance of Urban Areas," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 99(1), pages 81-110, January.
    12. Massimiliano Ferraresi & Giuseppe Migali & Leonzio Rizzo, 2017. "Does Inter-municipal Cooperation promote efficiency gains? Evidence from Italian Municipal," Working papers 59, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    13. Ivo Bischoff & Eva Wolfschuetz, 2017. "The Emergence of Inter-Municipal Cooperation – A Hazard Model Approach," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201744, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    14. Tianyou Hu & Siddharth Natarajan & Andrew Delios, 2021. "Sister cities, cross-national FDI, and the subnational FDI location decision," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(7), pages 1279-1301, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edoardo Di Porto & Vincent Merlin & Sonia Paty, 2013. "Cooperation among local governments to deliver public services : a "structural" bivariate response model with fixed effects and endogenous covariate," Working Papers halshs-00787600, HAL.
    2. Johan Lundberg, 2021. "Horizontal interactions in local personal income taxes," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 67(1), pages 27-46, August.
    3. Blesse, Sebastian & Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2016. "Do municipal mergers reduce costs? Evidence from a German federal state," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 54-74.
    4. Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2012. "Politics in coalition formation of local governments," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58528, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Agrawal, David R., 2016. "Local fiscal competition: An application to sales taxation with multiple federations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 122-138.
    6. Holzmann, Carolin & von Schwerin, Axel, 2015. "Economic integration and interdependence of tax policy," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 14/2015, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    7. Reingewertz, Yaniv, 2012. "Do municipal amalgamations work? Evidence from municipalities in Israel," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 240-251.
    8. Sandy Fréret & Denis Maguain, 2017. "The effects of agglomeration on tax competition: evidence from a two-regime spatial panel model on French data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(6), pages 1100-1140, December.
    9. Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2016. "Local representation and strategic voting: Evidence from electoral boundary reforms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 31-45.
    10. Miyazaki, Takeshi, 2013. "Municipal Consolidation and Local Government Behavior: Evidence from Japanese Voting Data on Merger Referenda," Discussion Paper Series 588, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    11. Clémence Tricaud, 2019. "Better alone? Evidence on the costs of intermunicipal cooperation," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2019-12-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    12. Harjunen, Oskari & Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2021. "Political representation and effects of municipal mergers," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 72-88, January.
    13. Frank M. Fossen & Lukas Mergele & Nicolas Pardo, 2017. "Fueling fiscal interactions: commodity price shocks and local government spending in Colombia," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(4), pages 616-651, August.
    14. repec:hal:journl:hal-03380333 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Hyytinen, Ari & Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2014. "Electoral vulnerability and size of local governments: Evidence from voting on municipal mergers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 193-204.
    16. Francisco Bastida & Bernardino Benito & Maria-Dolores Guillamon, 2019. "Tax mimicking in Spanish municipalities: expenditure spillovers, yardstick competition, or tax competition?," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 43(2), pages 115-139.
    17. Trojanek, Maria & Kisiala, Wojciech & Trojanek, Radoslaw, 2021. "Do local governments follow their neighbours’ tax strategies? Tax mimicking amongst Polish municipalities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    18. Takeshi Miyazaki, 2014. "Municipal consolidation and local government behavior: evidence from Japanese voting data on merger referenda," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 387-410, November.
    19. Takeshi Miyazaki, 2018. "Internalization of externalities and local government consolidation: empirical evidence from Japan," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 1061-1086, May.
    20. Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2013. "Identifying local tax mimicking: Administrative borders and a policy reform," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 157, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    21. Lapointe, Simon, 2018. "“Love thy neighbour”? The effect of income and language differences on votes for municipal secessions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 229-245.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inter-municipal cooperation; panel data; control function;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C3 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01098777. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.