German municipalities are expected to suffer from (often significant) population losses in the upcoming decades. We assess these local governments' vulnerability to the fiscal consequences of this demographic decline through two means (using a sample of 1021 municipalities in the state of...

States merge small and medium sized municipalities to achieve economies of scale. Little is known to which extent mergers of large local governments reduce expenditures. I use the synthetic control method to identify the effect of mergers of county-sized administrations in Germany (districts) on...

The basic objective of the work was to verify the hypothesis regarding the existence of the correlation between the income potential of the municipalities and the efficiency (relative) of their activity. The basis for such a hypothesis were some concerns as to the validity of the assumed system...