We study the effects of municipal mergers using novel geocoded data on
local public sector jobs and local politicians' place of residence. We
find that the mergers had no effects on municipal expenditures overall
after eight years. However, the mergers led to highly unequal geographic
political representation in the post-merger councils among the merged
municipalities. Small and politically marginalized municipalities
experienced a substantial reduction in local public jobs in
administration and health and social care services relative to the
municipalities with stronger representation. Development of house prices
suggests that the quality of the service-tax bundle deteriorated in
these politically marginalized municipalities.