Do large Polish cities substitute their own-source revenues with fees and user charges?

Abstract

This paper aims to assess if large Polish cities use fees and user charges to substitute other own-source revenues. The analysis has been conducted on a panel of 65 large cities in Poland in the period of 2004-2015. Using OLS and fixed effect panel analysis, it has been proved that cities pursue their policy in order to maximize their revenues, which is in line with the Leviathan theory assuming that public authorities maximize public revenues. Additionally, using the normalization quotient mapping, it has been confirmed that cities do not change their revenue policy in terms of taxes vs. fees and user charges trade-offs.