Abstract.
This paper examines the economic and political conditions that influence people’s attitudes regarding a municipality break-up. The theoretical model predicts intra-municipal differences in tax bases, political preferences, and population size to affect the expected gain from secession. The predictions of the model are tested using data on local referenda about municipality partitioning in Sweden. The data support one of the three effects; voters in municipality parts that are wealthy compared to other parts of the same municipality are more positive to secession.
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Received: April 2003, Accepted: September 2003,
JEL Classification Numbers:
H11, H73
Anna Brink: I thank Henry Ohlsson, Lars-Erik Borge, Matz Dahlberg, Katarina Nordblom, Magnus Wikström, seminar participants at Göteborg University and Uppsala University, and two anonymous referees for useful comments. This research was financially supported by the Swedish Research Council and Ejnar Lindhs kommunalvetenskapliga stiftelse.
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Brink, A. The break-up of municipalities: Voting behavior in local referenda. Economics of Governance 5, 119–135 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-003-0068-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-003-0068-0