Do strategic cost policies lead to more sustainable practices Evidence from county governments

Abstract

We contribute to social responsibility research by expanding its scope to include government-level actors and their stakeholders - citizens. We use county-level fiscal policy (strategic cost management) to investigate the public sector's role in maximising citizens' value through sustainability efforts. To date, inquiries of public sector sustainability take place mostly at the national level. Evidence suggests national-level inquiries are relatively poor indicators of public or private sustainability efforts and that investigations of sustainability at the local public sector-level may be more informative. Accordingly, we assess the link between strategic cost management and citizen-stakeholder value via panel analysis of 66 counties in Florida between 2005 and 2014. Contrasting prior literature, our results indicate a strategic cost management strategy that increased total aggregate county spending results in a reduction of emission levels. Further, when total spending is held constant while simultaneously allocating resources to social-public spending, county emission levels are reduced.