City responses to economic downturns 2003 to 2009: Statistical and textual analyses of comprehensive annual financial reports

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.

Financial Resilience in the Face of Turbulent Times: Evidence from Poland and Croatian Cities

“…In the literature, there have been various studies on local government financial resilience [1,[10][11][12]14,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], but the concept of fiscal resilience is lacking.…”

Budgetary responses to COVID-19: the case of South Korea

“…Second, the approval ratings for the ruling party was high, which served as an impetus for the Parliament to pass the budget. Many studies have investigated state or municipal responses to economic downturns or recessions (Darvas, 2010;Sacco and Busche e, 2013;Campbell and Sances, 2013;Cary and Bush, 2018). Poterba (1994) demonstrated that, facing economic downturn and fiscal crises, state fiscal institutions adjust to address budget deficits.…”