Economies of scale and sustainability in local government: A complex issue

Local governments may seek efficient public service delivery through scaling up production, and the quest for the optimal local government size has attracted extensive attention of scholars and policy makers. Indeed, if scale matters for local government efficiency, increasing size may be a key factor in achieving more value for money for...

‘Change for the Better?’—making sense of housing association mergers in the Netherlands and England

Mergers among housing associations have become a frequent phenomenon in both the Netherlands and England. The general literature on mergers highlights the need for research to consider the wider political and business environment, managerial motives and strategic choices, to adopt a process perspective and to evaluate outcomes in relation to...