The impact of institutional structures on city-country consolidation outcomes

Conclusion

For the most part, economic studies have not exhibited even a rudimentary awareness of the elements of the consolidation record discussed in the previous section. This neglect stems from an implicit assumption that the institutional structure underlying consolidation has no impact on outcomes. Models have been constructed as if real-world consolidations require the consent of all parties. While not logically contradictory, we have argued that this approach has little to do with actual processes. Most successful consolidations simply do not provide all residents of the metropolitan community with the opportunity of choosing between the status quo and agglomeration. Redistributive processes are the norm. Future studies on consolidation must proceed from this basic observation.