Local government amalgamations: state of the art and new ways forward

Local government amalgamations have been promoted in several countries during the last decades (Dollery et al. 2013 2008; Kortt et al. 2015). In most cases, they have been introduced with the aim to overcome institutional... [ view full abstract ]

Local government amalgamations have been promoted in several countries during the last decades (Dollery et al. 2013 2008; Kortt et al. 2015). In most cases, they have been introduced with the aim to overcome institutional boundaries to guarantee efficiency and effectiveness of public services. Over the last decades, they have spread and scholars have started to empirically analyse them in many countries, trying to identify their drivers and impacts and generating a vibrant field of study.
Within this backdrop, our paper proposes a literature review on local governments' amalgamation with the aim to i) explain when, where and how this issue has been studied; ii) analyse the results and the impacts produced by amalgamations; iii) identify the main gaps in the literature and moving forward the research agenda. To this end, we have conducted a descriptive meta-analysis of all the papers on amalgamations that have been published in public management journals since 1980. Subsequently, we have developed a coding scheme to analyse the collected papers, composed of the following items: theoretical framework, amalgamation conceptualisation, methods, research question, effects/variables investigated, institutional level, country, period of reference, results.
Preliminary results shed light on the following issues: the majority of studies tend to adopt a quantitative approach; both qualitative and quantitative analysis tend to not draw explicitly on a specific theory; the impacts of amalgamations on the level of public expenditures have attracted more attention as compared to the effects on the quality of services; variables such institutional and political context and span of time appear to explain the differences found between experiences.

Keywords: amalgamation, local governments, literature review.