Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 26th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview I. Working Group on Local Government Author(s) Pawel Swianiewicz Wroclaw University of Enviornmental and Life Sciences Wroclaw Poland Gendzwill Adam, Kurniewicz Anna, Title The Impact of Municipal Territorial Reforms on Economic Performance of Local Governments. Meta-analysis of Existing Academic Studies File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Pawel Swianiewicz Abstract During the last decade (2008-2017) municipal territorial reforms have been implemented in 15 different European countries, and if we add to that list countries which implemented similar reforms in early XXI century, we get to the list including more than 20 countries. Altogether, the number of European municipalities has decreased by more than 5,000 during the discussed period. The main arguments used in almost all of those reforms have been related to the economic performance – cost savings and increased capacity to deliver services. Several studies investigated also spending and borrowing patterns in the pre-amalgamation period in order to portray common pool exploitation. Numerous territorial reforms implemented recently have provided a unique occasion to study their impacts empirically. Several researchers have used that opportunity to design quasi-experimental studies analyzing impact of reforms on various indicators. The most often applied method of such studies is Difference-in-Differences, although occasionally alternative research designs (such as Synthetic Control) are used as well. The aim of the paper it to provide the meta-analysis of those studies, which would allow to systematize their conclusions. It concentrates on the articles published after 2000 in the international academic journals. The meta-analysis will focus on four main dimensions: geographical coverage of the study, main research questions, research design, main results/conclusions.
