Central City Exploitation by Urban Sprawl? Evidence from Swiss Local Communities (2009)
This paper investigates spatial spillovers in local spending decisions between the center and the surrounding local communities by using panel data of the canton of Lucerne during the 1990s. Due to the geographical fragmentation with a major central city and some 100 small suburban local communities within a distance from 4 to 55 kilometers to the center this area represents a particularly useful database in order to test the relevance of spatial interactions in a small metropolitan area. The empirical evidence confirms strategic interactions among suburban governments and the central city only for public education, health and environmental spending. There are no spatial interactions with the central city for overall government spending.