Strategic Planning and Institutional Collective Action in Italian Cities

Abstract

Long-run and sustainable development is a main source of concern for contemporary cities. To address this issue, strategic plans have been introduced in several cities. In this paper, we investigate the determinants of strategic plan adoption in Italian cities by relying on the institutional collective action theory which predicts that collaboration among institutions is more likely to occur in areas with larger social capital stock and where public bodies share a common history of collaboration. Our econometric evidence shows that a larger stock of social capital and a history of past institutional collaboration increases the probability of adopting a strategic plan, confirming the central prediction of the institutional collective action theory.