The above findings are differentiated by Blesse & Baskaran who found that there is a significant cost reduction associated with forced mergers, but not with voluntary mergers in a merger reform in the federal state of Brandenburg in East-Germany (post reunification) Blesse and Baskaran (2013). Their result indicates differential outcome, as a function of secondary characteristics of reform, i.e voluntariness. Given a correlation between administrative, economic efficiency and economic activity in