Better Alone? Evidence on the Costs of Intermunicipal Cooperation
利用法国强制市际合作的改革，发现被迫整合的市镇建设活动大增（邻避效应），农村地区公共服务减少，而自愿整合的市镇则无此负面效应，但两类市镇在公共交通和财政收入上获益相似。
This paper provides new evidence on why municipalities are often reluctant to integrate. Exploiting a French reform that made inter-municipal cooperation mandatory, I find that municipalities forced to integrate experienced a large increase in construction, consistent with NIMBYism, explaining their resistance and that rural municipalities ended up with fewer local public services. I do not find the same effects for municipalities that had voluntarily integrated prior to the law, while both types of municipality enjoyed similar benefits in terms of public transport and fiscal revenues. These findings support the fact that municipalities resisted to avoid the local costs of integration.