IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osp/wpaper/19e001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Municipal Merger and Debt Issuance in South African Municipality

Author

Listed:
  • Tsuyoshi Goto

    (Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science PhD. Student, Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University)

  • Sandra Sekgetle

    (Senior Economist, the National Treasury of South Africa)

  • Takashi Kuramoto

    (Associate Professor, Hirao School of Management, Konan University)

Abstract

Employing South African data and Difference-In-Difference (DID) method, this paper investigates whether the free-ride behaviour was taken by municipalities which faced their mergers before the municipal demarcation changes are executed. With several developed countries' data, many research show that there are opportunistic free-ride behaviours of municipalities such as over-issuance of debt before their mergers since the burden of them will be shared by newly constructed municipalities. In spite of these fruits of research, few solution is suggested in the literature. Considering this, we focus on the South African municipal mergers, where the upper government of municipalities implemented the policy for pre-merged municipalities to suspend new contracts involving the borrowing contract before the mergers. As a result of DID analysis, we show that South African municipalities did decrease the amount of borrowings before their mergers. This result is an opposite result considering the previous empirical researches and means that the proper policy for municipal mergers can prevent the fiscal common pool problem caused by free-ride behavior. In addition, this paper shed the light to utilize the data of developing countries and is the first paper to show there were reductions of borrowings before municipal mergers.

Suggested Citation

  • Tsuyoshi Goto & Sandra Sekgetle & Takashi Kuramoto, 2019. "Municipal Merger and Debt Issuance in South African Municipality," OSIPP Discussion Paper 19E001, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    • Handle: RePEc:osp:wpaper:19e001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.osipp.osaka-u.ac.jp/archives/DP/2019/DP2019E001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Jensen & Emily Oster, 2009. "The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1057-1094.
    2. Hirota, Haruaki & Yunoue, Hideo, 2017. "Evaluation of the fiscal effect on municipal mergers: Quasi-experimental evidence from Japanese municipal data," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 132-149.
    3. Henrik Jordahl & Che-Yuan Liang, 2010. "Merged municipalities, higher debt: on free-riding and the common pool problem in politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 157-172, April.
    4. Maarten A. Allers & J. Bieuwe Geertsema, 2016. "The Effects Of Local Government Amalgamation On Public Spending, Taxation, And Service Levels: Evidence From 15 Years Of Municipal Consolidation," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 659-682, September.
    5. Sune Welling Hansen, 2014. "Common pool size and project size: an empirical test on expenditures using Danish municipal mergers," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 3-21, April.
    6. 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.
    7. Weingast, Barry R & Shepsle, Kenneth A & Johnsen, Christopher, 1981. "The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 642-664, August.
    8. Nobuo Akai & Tsuyoshi Goto, 2018. "Strategic Intertemporal Budget Allocation of Local Governments in the Model with Spillovers and Mergers," OSIPP Discussion Paper 18E011, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Tsuyoshi Goto & Genki Yamamoto, 2018. "Creative Accounting and Municipal Mergers -A Theoretical and Empirical Approach-," OSIPP Discussion Paper 18E012, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    2. Hirota, Haruaki & Yunoue, Hideo, 2020. "Public investment and the fiscal common pool problem on municipal mergers in Japan," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 124-135.
    3. Nakazawa, Katsuyoshi, 2024. "Identifying Municipality Discretion Using a Quasi-Experimental Approach: The Case of Eligibility Assessments for Japan’s Long-Term Care Insurance Program," MPRA Paper 120911, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Nobuo Akai & Tsuyoshi Goto, 2018. "Strategic Intertemporal Budget Allocation of Local Governments in the Model with Spillovers and Mergers," OSIPP Discussion Paper 18E011, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    5. 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.
    6. Masayoshi Hayashi & Takafumi Suzuki, 2018. "Municipal Mergers and Capitalization: Evaluating the Heisei Territorial Reform in Japan," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1105, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    7. 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.
    8. Hirota, Haruaki & Iwata, Kazuyuki & Tanaka, Kenta, 2022. "Is public official training effective at reducing costs? Evidence from survey data on Japanese municipal mergers," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 145-158.
    9. Hirota, Haruaki & Yunoue, Hideo, 2017. "Evaluation of the fiscal effect on municipal mergers: Quasi-experimental evidence from Japanese municipal data," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 132-149.
    10. Tavares Antonio F., 2018. "Municipal amalgamations and their effects: a literature review," Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development, Sciendo, vol. 22(1), pages 5-15, March.
    11. Feld, Lars P. & Fritz, Benedikt, 2015. "The political economy of municipal amalgamation: Evidence of common pool effects and local public debt," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 15/10, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    12. Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2015. "Common pool problems in voluntary municipal mergers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 140-152.
    13. Saito, Hitoshi & Hirota, Haruaki & Yunoue, Hideo & Miyaki, Miki, 2017. "Does municipal mergers internalize spatial spillover effects? Empirical evidence from Japanese municipalities," MPRA Paper 76833, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Goto, Tsuyoshi & Yamamoto, Genki, 2023. "Debt issuance incentives and creative accounting: Evidence from municipal mergers in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    15. Benedikt Fritz & Lars P. Feld, 2020. "Common pool effects and local public debt in amalgamated municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 183(1), pages 69-99, April.
    16. Hitoshi Saito & Haruaki Hirota & Hideo Yunoue & Miki Miyaki, 2023. "Do municipal mergers internalise spatial spillover effects? empirical evidence from Japanese municipalities," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 70(2), pages 379-406, April.
    17. 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.
    18. Joaquín Artés & Ignacio Jurado, 2018. "Government fragmentation and fiscal deficits: a regression discontinuity approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 367-391, June.
    19. Roesel, Felix, 2017. "Do mergers of large local governments reduce expenditures? – Evidence from Germany using the synthetic control method," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 22-36.
    20. Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør & Torberg Falch & Bjarne Strøm, 2022. "Long‐run Effects of Local Government Mergers on Educational Attainment and Income," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(1), pages 185-213, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Municipal merger; Common pool problem; Free ride;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

    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:osp:wpaper:19e001. 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: Akiko Murashita (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iposujp.html .

    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.