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Reassessing the Link Between City Structure and Fiscal Policy

This study assesses the proposition that local government structure affects municipal expenditure levels. Despite decades of research, this question remains unsettled. Early on, analyses of this topic confirmed a linkage between municipal structure and fiscal policy, but more recent works have challenged this finding. Despite the widespread view that municipal structures are increasingly complex, many scholars continue to use simple measures of structure based on the use of the mayor—council or council—manager form. This gap between structures in practice and the measures used in research designs may explain the increasing frequency of studies with null findings. This proposition is examined through an analysis of the link between the per capita expenditures of 263 Michigan cities and four approaches to classifying local government structure. Regardless of the approach used or the complexity of the measure, no evidence was found that city structure is linked to per capita spending in these cities.