Full Description
This book is based upon a comparative public administration research project, initiated by the Hertie School of Governance (Germany) and the Bertelsmann Foundation (Germany) and supported by a network of researchers from many EU countries. It analyzes both the regimes and the practices of local fiscal regulation in 21 European countries.
The book brings together key findings of this research project. The regulatory discussion is not limited to the prominent issue of fiscal rules but focuses on every component of regulation. Beyond this, the book covers affiliated topics such as the impact of regulation for local governments, evolution of regulation, administrative costs and crisis prevention. The various book chapters throughout provide a broad picture of local public finance regulation in theory and in practice, using different theoretical and national lenses for the analysis. Furthermore, the authors investigate the effects of budgetary constraints and higher-level regulatory efforts on local governments and on democracy and public services in every European country. This book fills a gap with respect to the lack of discussion on local government finance from an international, comparative perspective and, in particular, the regulation of local public finance. With its mix of authors, this book will be useful for practitioners as well as for scholars and for theory-driven research.
Contents
Introduction: The Relevance and Conceptualisation of Local Public Finance Regulatory Regimes.- PART I. Concepts of Regulation.- Budget Institutions for Subnational Fiscal Discipline: Local Fiscal Rules in Post-Crisis EU Countries.- Fiscal Rules at the Local Level: The Challenge of Enforcement.- Financial Supervision of Local Governments: An Organisational Hurdle.- European Patterns of Local Government Fiscal Regulation.- Local Public Finance Regulation in Southeast Europe: A Comparison of Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia.- The Impact of Fiscal Rules on the Financial Management of Municipalities: A Comparative Analysis of Czech Republic and Slovakia.- Monitoring Local Government Financial Sustainability: A Dutch-English Comparison.- The Implementation of Fiscal Regulation: Insights from Germany.- Fiscal Supervision and Party Politics - Lessons from Austria and Germany.- PART II. Bailouts and Insolvency.- Preventing Local Government Defaults: No-Bailout Policy and its Alternatives.- Municipalities and Excessive Debt - Local Insolvency Regimes as an Alternative to Bailouts?.- Four Decades of Municipal Bailouts in Germany.- PART III. Local Public Finance in Times of Crisis.- Global Crisis, Local Impact: A Comparative Approach to the Financial Crisis' Impacts on European Local Levels.- Fiscal consolidation in German and Greek Local Governments: Reform Attempts, Supervision, and Local Measures.- Financial Decisions, Intergovernmental Grants and Regulatory Instability: The Case of Italian Municipalities.- Insights from City Financial Realities: Comparing and Learning across Borders.- Taking Stock: The Role of Institutional Context for Local Government Financial Resilience.- Local Government Tax Structure.
