PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to examine the political, economic and institutional determinants of capital assets condition ratio in American local governments using government-wide financial statements.Design/methodology/approachBased on capital assets data from the period of 2011–2016 for the 66 Florida counties as reported on their government-wide financial statements, the authors use a panel two-way fixed effects estimation and a dynamic panel generalized method of moments estimation.FindingsThe authors find that social-economic factors, fiscal capacity and democratic voters explain the capital assets condition ratio in Florida county governments.Research limitations/implicationsThe major findings of this study may only apply to county government in one single state. It may raise the issue of the external validity of our research. It provides policy recommendations for local public officials to maintain and upgrade their capital assets.Originality/valueThe study utilizes a new approach of capital assets condition ratio to measure county government investment in capital assets based on the government-wide financial statements.

Local governments’ ability to sustain a healthy fiscal structure and meet service obligations is critical in avoiding financial hardship. This study empirically tests the effects of intrastate fiscal decentralization on municipal fiscal health that is measured by cash solvency, budget solvency, and long-run solvency. The two key variables, revenue decentralization and expenditure decentralization, are constructed to represent intrastate fiscal decentralization. The panel dataset includes 100 large U.S. cities and covers fiscal years 2007 through 2016, which encompasses periods before, during, and after the Great Recession started in 2008. The model estimation is based on a two-way fixed-effect panel regression. The results show that an increased degree of state-local revenue decentralization is significantly associated with higher long-term solvency, while an increased degree of state-local expenditure decentralization leads to higher levels of cash solvency and lower levels of long-term solvency.

Social media technologies have been widely adopted by governments to increase civic engagement, promote openness, and extend services. Previous research finds that public managers’ attitudes are important predictors of social media adoption and successful implementation. Managers’ attitudes may vary due to different organizational structures, functions, and operations based on department type or because departments vary along with key dimensions. This research investigates the following questions: (1) Does department type significantly predict public managers’ attitudes toward social media, (2) does department type moderate the effect of predictors of managers’ attitudes toward social media found in previous research, and (3) do the predictors of managers’ attitudes toward social media found in previous research mediate attitude differences observed across different kinds of departments. Using data collected from a 2014 national web survey in the United States on technology in city government, we find department type is an important predictor of managers’ attitudes toward social media use. The effects of other predictors of attitudes toward social media use were not moderated by department type. Instead, those predictors had similar effects regardless of department type. Some of the variables related to organizational characteristics and culture (e.g., social media use, innovativeness, and use of e-services) helped to explain differences between the attitudes of managers from different departments. Our findings are important for developing strategies to target managers’ negative attitudes toward using social media, thus removing one of the barriers to successful technology implementation.