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This article examines the relationship between council size and municipal expenditures in Quebec's largest municipalities. Two claims commonly found in the literature are tested: the professionalization and the law of 1/n hypotheses. Using cross-sectional data, the professionalization hypothesis is confirmed: each elected official costs more in a smaller council. As for the law of 1/n, the effect of council size on total government expenditures is not significant. These results refute the cost saving argument for smaller councils and suggest that other aspects, such as quality of democratic life and efficiency in decision-making, may be more relevant to the debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about the size of government, which are often debates about what government should or should not do, need to be joined by a concern for the relative cost of government. Since 1981, the price in the public sector has grown faster than the price for GDP. We decompose the ratio between the price index for the public sector and that for GDP in the Canadian provinces and capture the governments' price advantage/disadvantage in different spending categories. Our analysis shows that governments with lower debt ratios and weaker fiscal rules are more vulnerable to rising costs, particularly during periods of higher commodity prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]