Revenue Portfolio and Expenditures: An Examination of the Volatility of Tax Revenue and Expenditure Patterns during the Great Recession

ABSTRACT

Local governments in the United States are diversifying their revenue streams and becoming less reliant on the inelastic revenue from property taxes. This article examines both how this affects local governments’ revenue stability in economic downturns as well as their levels of expenditures in key functions: capital and social services. Using data from North Carolina counties from both before the Great Recession and after, this article examines reliance on local sales taxes and stability of revenue. The findings suggest that dependence on local sales taxes do increase volatility and reduce expenditures on social services, all else being equal.     

Local revenue structure under economic hardship: reliance on alternative revenue sources in California counties

This article investigates how a worsening economy affects local revenue structure, and whether the impact is moderated by the fiscal relationship within higher levels of government. The revenue potential of nontax sources – fees/charges and fines/forfeitures – is considerable for local governments under economic hardship. With the panel data from California counties over a period of 11 years (2000–2010), this article shows that reliance on nontax revenue largely depends on the economic and fiscal factors that vary across counties, and the effect of economy is contingent on local dependence on intergovernmental transfers. Counties are likely to raise nontax revenue when the economy worsens and their transfer-dependence increases, while the marginal effect of the economic indicators changes from negative to positive as transfer dependence increases. This article illuminates the characteristics of the two types of nontax sources in terms of the mechanisms of incentivising human behaviour and concludes with policy implications for researchers and practitioners.     

Financial management conservatism under constraints: tax and expenditure limits and local deficit financing during the Great Recession

This paper investigates the relationship between tax and expenditure limits (TELs) and local government deficit financing decisions following the recent recession. Cities under the resource constraints are hypothesised to practise conservatism in financial management decisions and thus less likely to deficit finance during difficult times. Using data from 2005 to 2012 Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports of the 50 largest US cities, this paper finds that cities subject to a binding TEL are more likely to control expenditure growth from pre-crisis years to years following the recession; these cities are also less likely to increase deficit financing following the recession, as indicated by a relative increase in their net assets. Although continuous deficit erodes fiscal sustainability and is an undesirable management practice, deficit financing during recessions may be needed for smoothing expenditure and sustaining service provision. The management conservatism associated with the fiscal rules may contribute to the cyclicality of local spending.     

On restructuring ways in realizing the public service function of village and town governments in building a new countryside

Although the village and town government is at the minimum level of political organization in the state administrative system, it is responsible for the layout and organization of rural public facilities, commonweal projects, and for providing the countryside with public goods and services. How they fulfill their duties have a direct impact on the rural stability and development and on the whole country and society. With the establishment of socialist market economy and faster rural urbanization, the functions of the village and town government have changed to a greater extent. However, in the social transition period, phenomena like ＂the vacancy＂, ＂the offside＂ and ＂the dislocation＂ still exist in the operation of the village and town government. Through function analysis of village and town governments, this article analyzes the problems which the public service faces in building a new countryside, and proposes the feasible ways in function restructuring to the public service orientation for village and town governments. These are of great realistic significance for the construction of new socialist countryside and public-service-oriented government.     

多中心理论视角下的中国地方公共服务供给——从民间“老板消防队”得到的启示

转型期政府职能的重点转向服务经济建设,社会公共服务职能履行的空间出现缺位,迫切需要一种新的供给模式取代以政府为单一中心的供给模式,从而更好地响应地方经济发展所引致的迅速增加的公共服务需求.以浙江瑞安"老板消防队"为例,围绕多中心理论讨论民间自发组织在提供地方公共服务上所应有的经济角色,并构建一般效用函数模型,分析公共服务不同供给模式的可能局限以及多中心供给的效率改善.结论表明:引入民间自发组织等多主体参与公共服务供给能充分反映地方公共服务的需求和偏好;多中心供给模式是克服政府单一供给局限的有效途径.     

超大型国家治理中的地方法治试验及其制度约束

地方法治试验既能够激发地方政府的创造性,又能够科学有效地规范地方政府权力运作。竞争动力学理论从经济发展产生的内生性驱动和官员晋升锦标赛产生的外在压力两方面,解释了地方法治试验的动力机制。中国采取“政府集权+行政集权”模式在促进国家统一同时,扩大了国家的治理规模,增加了国家的治理负荷,引发了超大型国家治理的结构性难题。中央试图通过允许地方进行法治试验的方式,来解决这一难题。它能够在统护法律统一的前提下,及时调整中央集权与分权的程度。中央通过宪制约束、组织约束和政策调控等多种手段,加强对地方法治试验的约束,确保国家整体主义体制结构的实现。地方法治不是一个脱离中国整体法治而存在的本体论意义上的概念,而是一个具有强烈方法论意义的概念。     

Don’t push too hard. Examining the managerial behaviours of local authorities in collaborative networks with nonprofit organisations

In recent years, collaborative networks have been at the forefront of theoretical, empirical and practical research into local governance. Nevertheless, the managerial behaviours local managers should employ in order to improve the performance of these networks are unclear. Following scholars' examinations of governance and the complementary relationship between government bodies and nonprofit organisations, we empirically examined – so far as we know for the first time – the relationship between local authority managerial behaviours towards nonprofit organisations, and the performance of collaborative networks. We found that above and beyond micro- and macro-level factors, the more the local authority employs inclusive governance and financial support behaviours towards the nonprofit organisation, the higher the performance of the collaborative network. In addition, the more the local authority employs monitoring-controlling behaviours, the lower the performance of the collaborative network. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are developed in the context of local governance.     

The impact of revenue diversification on municipal debts: comparing short-term and long-term debt levels

The extant literature has offered two competitive implications of revenue diversification: revenue stabilisation and fiscal illusion. Stabilisation helps governments have less revenue volatility, while fiscal illusion expands tax burdens through the increase in expenditure. The competitive views on revenue diversification leave a niche to explore the association between revenue diversification and debt levels in local governments. We estimate the static and dynamic effects of revenue diversification on both short-term and long-term debt levels in 150 fiscally standardised cities. Our findings show that local governments with greater revenue diversification are more likely to reduce short-term debts while expanding long-term debts. The findings imply that a stabilised revenue structure helps local governments better manage operational budgets but also invest in capital projects with greater debt capacity.     

Reputation reform strategies in local government: investigating Denmark and Norway

This article investigates reputation reform in Norwegian and Danish local government and whether they have the same strategy content depending on the degree of administrative involvement and municipality size. Political and administrative actors are likely to cultivate different types of reputation strategies (place or organisational reputation), which explicitly embrace the potentially diverging interests cultivated by the two types of actors. We use a comparative design and quantitative method with an empirical ambition to explore local government reputation strategies in two national contexts. We find that local government responses to reputation reform depend on the size of the municipality and the type of actors involved; the larger the municipality, the more the administration is involved. And the more that administrative actors are involved, the more the strategies target organisational reputation. The country-specific factors do not appear to be the most important determinants for reputation reform strategies.     

地方餐厨垃圾管理立法之探析

餐厨垃圾管理是我国各大城市共同面临的环境保护问题。地方餐厨垃圾管理立法已经起步,并以较快的速度在发展。但地方餐厨垃圾管理立法在立法目的、立法内容等方面存在缺陷,我国应对此加以完善,并建立餐厨垃圾有偿收集制度、餐厨垃圾管理信息公开制度等各项制度。