The structure of US local governments is often a poor predictor of local economic growth.

In the US metropolitan areas can be organized in different ways, with some areas having more or fewer local governments, with competing schools of thought over which structure leads to greater economic growth. In new research which examines over 300 US metropolitan areas, Christopher Goodman finds that the structure of local governments can be important, but it is often specific to certain regions and can be easily overshadowed by the underlying economic characteristics of metropolitan areas.