Local Government Fiscal Health: Comparing Self‐Assessments to Conventional Measures

Leiser, Stephanie; Mills, Sarah Banas

doi:10.1111/pbaf.12226

Cited by 20 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, Levine and Gershenson (2014) find that rates of requests for local services vary with the racial and immigrant composition of different communities. In the Michigan context, Leiser and Mills (2019) find that population and percent white are positively associated with perceived fiscal health, while median age, median income, and unemployment are not significant predictors.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…In the set of indicators available from the state data, there is a stronger emphasis on cash-, budgetary-, and service-level solvency, with no indicators available to reflect long-term solvency. 3 Knowing that local officials do worry about more longterm fiscal challenges (Leiser and Mills 2019), we assume these models only capture a portion of the variation in the Fiscal Stress Index, and parameter estimates may be biased by omitted variables. However, the data may still have predictive value and can allow us to compare the empirical relationships between available indicators and perceived fiscal condition for high-stress versus low-stress governments.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Maher and Deller (2011) investigate whether objective fiscal measures approximate the subjective self-assessments of local officials in Wisconsin and find only weak and inconsistent associations. Leiser and Mills (2019) examine similar data from Michigan and find that local officials emphasize long-run and external issues, such as infrastructure funding and state aid, but the relative importance of different factors varies depending on whether the jurisdiction reported high or low stress.…”

Section: Importance Of Local Official Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 96%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Perceptions of Local Government Fiscal Health and Fiscal Stress: Evidence From Quantile Regressions With Michigan Municipalities and Counties

Leiser¹,

Wang

Kargman³

2021

State and Local Government Review

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study applies insights from open systems theory to explore how the perceptions of local officials can enhance our understanding of local government fiscal health—in particular, to understand differences between healthy and distressed jurisdictions. With a sample of local governments in Michigan from 2013 to 2019, we use quantile regression to investigate associations between subjective financial condition measures and objective indicators. The results show that these relationships are often more muted for lower-stress governments and more pronounced for higher-stress governments, a pattern that is not accounted for by traditional methods of measuring financial condition. The findings demonstrate the utility of open systems theory and quantile regression techniques to improve understanding of the financial condition and suggest that in order to avoid overlooking cases of fiscal distress, policymakers and analysts should incorporate these approaches into methods for diagnosing local fiscal health.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Importance Of Local Official Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 96%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Perceptions of Local Government Fiscal Health and Fiscal Stress: Evidence From Quantile Regressions With Michigan Municipalities and Counties

Leiser¹,

Wang

Kargman³

2021

State and Local Government Review

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Special attention was also paid to: -recovery of the financial state of the economy after the pandemic [5]. It is necessary to define a clear action plan for economic recovery and indicate clustering as an effective mechanism for its development; -issues of cluster development [6] and the need for financial activity of the government to overcome the crisis [7].…”

Section: Research Of Existing Solutions To the Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvement of the mechanism of management accounting of enterprise expenses in the conditions of clusterization

Hlasov

2021

TAPR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The object of research is the implementation of clustering of the economy as an effective mechanism for management accounting of the costs of enterprises. One of the most problematic areas is the identification of the main priority areas of clustering the economy, which will actively influence the development of management accounting of enterprises' costs. The use of a cluster mechanism for management cost accounting, thanks to management, information, personnel, financial, investment, and innovation potential, will create a research base for developing cost accounting methods and assess the prospects for its use in clusters. The analysis of the current state of the introduction of clustering of the economy is made on the example of Ukraine. The main characteristics of the directions of development of the introduction of clustering of the economy have been determined. The main priority areas of clustering of the economy will actively influence the development of management accounting of enterprises' costs. In the course of the study, approaches to clustering the economy as an effective mechanism for management accounting of enterprises' costs are used. The stages of the introduction of clustering of the economy as an effective mechanism for management accounting of the costs of enterprises are determined. These stages provide for the determination of the role of clustering the economy in creating an effective mechanism for accounting for expenses in clusters and the development and implementation of action plans for its implementation. The next step is to analyze the implementation of management accounting of expenses in clusters and develop the principles of its formation. For their implementation, it is proposed to develop directions for the development of the introduction of clustering of the economy and to present the cluster mechanism as an effective factor in improving the management accounting of enterprises' costs. Thanks to this, it is possible to prevent and solve the problems of management accounting of expenses in clusters and to increase the efficiency of the cluster association. In comparison with similar well-known methods, the proposed approaches allow to form an effective management cost accounting system and improve management in clusters using the cluster approach.

show abstract

“…A local government's financial condition or fiscal health can be defined as its ability to meet financial and service obligations (Jacob and Hendrick 2012;Leiser and Mills 2019). We define municipal fiscal distress as a failure to meet standards in the areas of operating position, debt, community needs and resources over successive years (Kloha et al 2005a).…”

Section: Developing a Framework For Measuring Fiscal Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a comprehensive assessment system of local government fiscal health

Kooij¹,

Groot²

2021

MAB

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding fiscal health, also commonly referred to as financial condition, is key to sound decision making and the proper functioning of local government. Nonetheless there is no agreed upon way to measure fiscal health. We argue that the use of a conceptual framework is essential in furthering our understanding of measuring and assessing local government fiscal health. In this study we offer a framework and a set of financial accounting indicators visualizing fiscal health on the short and long term, taking into account the existing liabilities and local government obligations towards its constituents. The study draws on the theoretical and empirical analysis of corporate bankruptcy prediction models and local government fiscal distress models. We develop a possible comprehensive set of fiscal health indicators and compare it with existing empirical studies of local government fiscal health. The model captures current performance in four solvency dimensions (cash, budget, service-level and long term) and allows for predictions of future performance, taking into account risks (predictors of possible future financial stress) and capabilities (opportunities to strengthen future financial health). We tested our model by reviewing 33 empirical studies and found that we could allocate all indicators used to the dimensions of our framework. No empirical study appears to address all dimensions. The selection of performance dimensions is partly driven by the studies’ research objectives.

show abstract

Local Government Fiscal Health: Comparing Self‐Assessments to Conventional Measures

Cited by 20 publications

References 12 publications

Perceptions of Local Government Fiscal Health and Fiscal Stress: Evidence From Quantile Regressions With Michigan Municipalities and Counties

Perceptions of Local Government Fiscal Health and Fiscal Stress: Evidence From Quantile Regressions With Michigan Municipalities and Counties

Improvement of the mechanism of management accounting of enterprise expenses in the conditions of clusterization

Towards a comprehensive assessment system of local government fiscal health

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About