On Government Structure and Spending: The Effects of Management Form and Separation of Powers

This paper contributes to the on-going debate over how government form affects spending. It broadens the previous focus on elected versus professional management to address the separation of legislative and executive powers. The empirical results reveal spending differences between governments with separation of powers and those with unified powers only for Southern counties of the US. In addition, for all regions and time-periods, professional or elected executive management does not significantly affect either municipal or county spending.