outcomes. Chapter 3 examines how highway access affects commuting and employment in connected municipalities. Chapter 4 …

In rural areas, small and medium-sized municipalities are challenged by demographic change and intensified competition … fiscal stress, nor the availability of suitable partner municipalities are found to drive citizens' preferences. …

Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is promoted as a way in which small, fiscally weak munic-ipalities can cope with … where IMC implies intensified interaction with citizens from neighboring municipalities. The main research question asks … whether citizens' support for IMC is larger in municipalities that can - by the logic of normative theory - expect higher net …

We analyze data from a survey among local council members in 59 German municipali-ties. We ask council members whether … their home municipality should cooperate with neigh-boring municipalities in the provision of public services like childcare …

, we expect IMC to be more frequent among shrinking municipalities. Our results supports this notion. However, there is no … evidence that municipalities make use of complementarities from divergent population dynamics. We apply a hazard model that … IMC. IMC agreements are less likely to emerge in election years when municipalities face low cost pressure while the …