Consolidation in national accounts: Implications for municipal enterprises
研究发现，合并的市政企业支出受民选官员实现财政政策目标动机的影响，尽管这些企业具有自主法律地位，但合并促进了财政监控，也可能使政治议程渗透到本应保持距离的领域。
We argue and find evidence that the spending of consolidated municipal enterprises is influenced by elected officials’ incentives to meet fiscal policy targets. Our evidence indicates that municipalities have control over the operating decisions of consolidated municipal enterprises, despite their autonomous legal status. Importantly, we find that the implications of elected officials’ attempts to avoid a fiscal deficit for consolidated subsidiaries’ spending do not extend to the counterfactual case of non-consolidated entities also owned by the municipality. Therefore, while consolidation promotes fiscal monitoring, it also plausibly enables politicians’ agenda to permeate areas designated to be kept at arm’s length.