Incentives, entrepreneurs, and boundary change - A collective action framework

The authors develop an institutional choice framework to examine and interp ret change in local boundaries and provide a single explanation for the use of varied instruments to create new boundaries or expand old ones. Boundar y decisions am viewed as the product of actors' seeking particular outcomes within a context of existing governments and established rules governing b oundary change. Selective costs and benefits, rather than collective costs and benefits, are most likely to provide incentives for institutional entre preneurship and collective action. Such a framework is valuable because it integrates the fragmented literatures on local boundaries, provides a linka ge between boundary choices and policy outcomes at the local level, and can guide empirical research into the causes and consequences of boundary chan ge. This framework: can provide the foundation of a more general model of i nstitutional choice and institutional entrepreneurship.