My most recent research project in this field is a co-operative venture with Riccardo Mussari and Giuseppe Grossi at Siena University, and with my colleague at Kristianstad University, Torbjörn Tagesson. We are going to compare Italian and Swedish experiences of control of business groups in municipalities. Today, the project is partly based on my previous research on both municipalities and on business groups in the private economy.

One obvious question concerning corporations fully owned by municipalities is why do they engage in operations that can be organised in corporations, an association based on capital and authority, not citizen welfare and democracy. The question following this question is: How do they make sure that the objectives of the corporation are fulfilled? Or, in other words, what mechanisms do the municipal owners use in order to control their corporations? When converted to the later question, the project turns into a rather main stream corporate governance study. One paper was written before the co-operation with Siena University. It can be found here.

I got the opportunity to test some of the ideas in a survey, financed by the Association of Swedish municipalities, today The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. The empirical study has been published by the organisation, and can be downloaded from this page (but in Swedish).

Today I am engaged, as indicated earlier, in a project in a co-operative venture. The aim is to compare the rather recent development of business groups in municipalities in Italy, with the experiences of Swedish municipal business groups. The results are contained in the future..