Our focus is not on the reasons behind this recent merger wave. In public discussion, the merger wave is often seen as a result
of increasing fiscal pressure due to differences in population trends and aging across municipalities making it difficult for small
and poor municipalities to cope with their responsibilities. Saarimaa and Tukiainen (2014) describe the determinants of these
mergers and find evidence suggesting that fiscal pressure, voter preferences and local democracy considerations influence the
merger decisions. Hyytinen et al. (2014) study the merger decisions at the individual councilor level and find that councilors'
re-election concerns play a role. The key finding in these papers is that political incentives of local politicians matter in the merger
decisions.8 However, the paper at hand studies the electoral effects of these mergers in the municipal elections after the mergers.