Abstract We analyze jurisdictional fragmentation and sprawl utilizing municipal mergers as a quasi-experiment. We use Finnish population-wide register data with precise location information and compare the location of new buildings (and their residents) in the actual mergers to the location of new buildings in a control group of hypothetical mergers constructed from the pre-merger municipality map. We find that, in the smaller municipalities of a given merger new buildings were built about 10 per cent or 2 km closer to the new administrative center. These effects materialize after two municipal council terms (8 years) and are driven by mergers resembling functional urban areas.
Harjunen et al. (Fri,) studied this question.