Christopher V. Hawkins

COMPETITION AND COOPERATION: LOCAL GOVERNMENT JOINT VENTURES FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT: Voluntary cooperative arrangements are increasingly being established among local governments for economic development purposes. This article extends the institutional collective action framework to economic development to investigate the conditions under which local government units overcome transaction costs to establish joint ventures. Data were derived from a survey of intergovernmental relations for 206 local governments with a population of 10,000 or more in 12 metropolitan areas. The findings of a logistic regression analysis indicate that endogenous resources, such as cooperative norms and trust, as well as the local and regional context, influence cooperation.

Sustainable Development Governance Citizen Participation and Support Networks in Local Sustainability Initiatives

Although local governments are becoming more active in pursuing environmental sustainability initiatives, understanding the participation mechanisms utilized by communities is critical for improving the management and success of sustainable development. Since sustainable development can also be relatively complex and requires specialized skills, a network of organizations can bolster the capacity of local governments to plan and implement sustainability initiatives. This study is intended to contribute to the literature on sustainability by presenting a conceptual model of sustainable development governance. This model focuses of collaboration among local governments, residents of the community, and organizations of a support network. On the basis of a national survey of U.S. cities, the authors present evidence on the extent to which cities utilize elements of the conceptual model.

Prospects for and Barriers to Local Government Joint Ventures

This study examines the formation of local government joint ventures for economic development. The results of a survey of local government officials in 12 metropolitan areas are used to compare cities that do and do not have a joint venture agreement and identify prospects for interjurisdictional cooperation. Transaction cost theory is applied as an analytical framework to explain the barriers to collective action. The results suggest there are differences in the motivations for cooperation and significant variation among cities in the extent to which officials perceive coordination, division, and defection problems as obstacles to forming a joint venture. Local governments oftentimes establish interlocal agreements to deliver services and manage problems that cross jurisdictional borders. Voluntary agreements between cities can be flexible and informal in nature and are intended to address multiple local and regional issues, with costs and responsibilities shared among a small number of participants. From this perspective, horizontal cooperation is a mechanism by which local governments can complement existing governing arrangements and enable government units to address pressing urban problems while maintaining control over local land-use and development decisions (Steinacker, forthcoming). Furthermore, bilateral agreements between communities may be more acceptable politically than other forms of cooperation that reduce the latitude of a government unit to change policy directions and partners (Feiock and Scholz, forthcoming). Cooperation even extends into policy areas such as economic development in which the political economy strongly mediates policy choices and competition exists (Feiock and Kim 2001; Hawkins, forthcoming). There are numerous benefits to cooperation. Access to resources that are only available through cooperative actions, particularly when there are constraints on revenue-raising abilities, suggests that forming an agreement is one mechanism by which a city can achieve its goals. Joint venture agreements, for instance, are critically important to supporting local growth and future economic development (Feiock, Steinacker, and Park 2009). Rather than being potentially ad hoc or strictly related to the transfer of funds, as some interlocal service agreements are, a joint venture may be more legally binding and considerably costly depending on the policy focus and investment decisions made by the participating communities (Zeemering 2008). The literature notes a variety of benefits that may accrue from cooperation and identiProspects for and Barriers to Local Government Joint Ventures

Understanding Horizontal and Vertical Relations in the Context of Economic Development Joint Venture Agreements

A joint venture agreement is one type of governance mechanism that can be adopted by local governments to address collective action problems. While much of the current research discusses the importance of regional cooperation, few studies explore the type of relations formed with institutional actors in the context of interjurisdictional agreements. The authors address this gap in the literature by investigating the association among the transaction costs of forming an economic development joint venture agreement and two types of relations formed by local governments: horizontal and vertical. The results of a survey of local officials in 12 large metropolitan areas indicate that, depending upon the extent to which coordination, division, or defection problems are perceived to make joint venture agreements difficult to establish, local governments have horizontal and vertical relations. The findings highlight challenges and opportunities for addressing collective action problems and facilitating regional cooperation for economic development.

Regional Cooperation and Multilateral Agreements in the Provision of Public Safety

Although much has been written about interlocal agreements for the delivery of services, few studies have examined the factors that influence the establishment of different types of multilateral agreements (MLAs). To address this lacuna, the authors draw a distinction between an adaptive and restrictive MLA and seek to understand why local governments enter into one type of arrangement over the other. The authors build our theoretical argument on the basis of previous research that suggests agreements are designed to minimize the uncertainties associated with transaction risk. On the basis of this premise, the author’s general proposition is that the decision to establish an adaptive MLA is shaped by the asset specificity and measurability of the goods and services of the transaction. The authors utilize data on public safety agreements among municipal and county governments in the state of Florida. Findings suggest that local governments are more likely to form an adaptive MLA when goods and services are relatively high in service measurability difficulty and when both high and low asset specificity exit.

Joint Ventures, Economic Development Policy, and the Role of Local Governing Institutions

The “rules of the game” embodied in municipal government institutions constrain as well as provide opportunities for local government officials to capture individual benefits related to policy action. Whether the projected benefits of cooperation are localized or community-wide are hypothesized to combine with the political incentives produced under different forms of government to influence the likelihood local officials will enter into an economic development joint venture with other local governments. Analysis pooling survey data from the same cities at two time points provides evidence that prior agreements influence future cooperative actions and that joint ventures are more likely when there are localized benefits combined with mayor—council government, or when broader benefits are pursued under manager—council form of government.

The Integrated City Sustainability Database

This article describes the construction of the Integrated City Sustainability Database (ICSD) that is the first truly comprehensive data set of U.S. municipal government sustainability programs and policies. Taking advantage of a unique opportunity to combine seven independent data collection efforts, it will provide a valuable resource for scholars in multiple disciplines investigating local environmental and energy sustainability. It also adds missing elements to the research infrastructure for the study of local government and urban policy. This nationwide database will provide a comprehensive assessment of municipal sustainability programs that can contribute to a more rigorous and theoretically informed understanding of city government and governance.

Making meaningful commitments: Accounting for variation in cities’ investments of staff and fiscal resources to sustainability:

Environmental sustainability is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. A number of explanations have been advanced for why some local governments make strong commitments to sustainability while others do not. Most of the extant empirical research, however, has relied on models that employ only one or just a few of these explanations. As a result, empirical analyses do not encompass a comprehensive set of variables that account for alternative explanations. This study begins to fill this lacuna by specifying an empirical model that examines six explanations for local commitment towards sustainability: local sustainability priorities, regional governance, climate protection networks, interest group support, local fiscal capacity, and characteristics of the local governing institution. Moreover, we use the designation of human and financial resources specifically for sustainability to operationalise commitment. This is a more substantive measure than has been used in previous studies. We accomplish this by utilising data from the Integrated City Sustainability Database. Our results indicate that local priorities, participation in regional governance, and membership in climate protection networks influence the likelihood of cities’ devotion of resources to sustainability. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice.

The Costs of Cooperation What the Research Tells Us about Managing the Risks of Service Collaborations in the U.S.

Service collaborations often must confront risks arising from problems of coordination, division, and defection. U.S. scholars have focused on understanding the efficacy of three general strategies to reducing these risks. First, the use of adaptive and restrictive contracts to reduce the risks from service characteristics has received a lot of attention. Second, scholars have studied how the use of different institutional arrangements reduces the risks of collaborative service provision. Third, attention has been devoted to understanding how the social networks of administrators and elected officials mitigate risk in sharing services. This article concludes with suggestions for future research on this topic.

Inter-Jurisdictional Economic Development: A Political Institution Explanation for Policy Choice

This study examines the role of formal institutions and rules of government in the formation of joint venture agreements for economic development. Research suggests local governing arrangements play an influential role in the policy area of local economic development. This study presents an argument that form of government provides incentives that influence the decision to establish a developmental, redistributive, or regional interjurisdictional agreement. The results of a multinomial logit model using survey data collected from 12 metropolitan areas provides evidence to support the hypotheses that unreformed governing institutions, compared to cities with an appointed professional manager, are more likely to form joint venture agreements that are developmental in nature.