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Inflation and federal monetary efforts to control it with interest rate hikes have very real and overwhelmingly negative consequences on US local governments following the onset of COVID-19. This study explores the post-pandemic inflationary environment of US local governments; examines the impacts of inflation and high interest rates on local government revenue, operating costs, capital costs, and debt service; reviews local government inflation management strategies, including the use of intergovernmental revenue; and assesses ongoing threats to local government financial health and financial resilience.

This study uses trend and literature analysis to comment on current issues local governments face.

The study finds that the growth of property values and resulting stability of property tax revenue has been important to local government revenues; that local governments bear very real burdens as operating and capital costs increase; and that the combination of high inflation and interest rates affects local government debt issuance by negatively affecting credit quality and interest costs, leading to municipal market contraction. Local governments have benefitted tremendously from intergovernmental revenue, but would be ill-advised to rely on it.

Vulnerabilities owing from revenue mismatch with the economy; inadequate affordable housing, inequality, and social issues; a changing workforce and tight labor market; climate change; and federal fiscal contraction—all of which are exacerbated by high inflation and interest rates—require local governments to act strategically, boldly and collaboratively to achieve fiscal health and financial resilience, and to realize positive returns of investments in people and capital.

This work is unique in addressing the post-pandemic impact of inflation and interest rates on local governments.

The expansion of bike-sharing enterprises has led to a series of social problems, and due to the high breakage rate and high recycling cost of bike sharing, enterprises are reluctant to maintain them. Therefore, government regulation does play a leading role in maintaining bike sharing. This study’s purpose is to investigate how the government should regulate the bike-sharing enterprises that maintain bicycles.

Firstly, the authors assume that there is only one bike-sharing enterprise and establish a game model that the government regulates the enterprise. Furthermore, the authors extend the model to the case that there are two competing enterprises in the market. Finally, through numerical analysis, the influence of various factors on the government strategy and revenue is analyzed.

The authors find that the regulatory probability of two enterprises are regulated by the government is larger than that of one enterprise. When two bike-sharing enterprises compete without government regulation, both will choose the non-self-discipline strategy, thus falling into the Prisoner's Dilemma. If the government regulates them, then both enterprises will choose the self-discipline strategy. Finally, through numerical analysis, it is found that the self-discipline behavior of bike-sharing enterprises is related to the government regulatory probability, the cost of self-discipline, the probability of being reported and the penalties. Interestingly, the cost of government regulation will not affect the regulation probability of government.

This research provides a theoretical reference for the government to make the regulation strategies of bike sharing and achieve the sustainable development of bike sharing.

This research provides a theoretical reference for the government to make the regulation strategies of bike sharing and achieve the sustainable development of bike sharing.

This study aims to examine why tax reforms fail and explores how tax collection can be improved within a developing country context.

Data comprise 28 semi-structured interviews with taxpayers, tax experts and tax authority personnel based in Pakistan. The results are analysed using a combined lens of taxpayer trust and tax agencies’ capabilities.

Tax reforms failed to build taxpayers’ trust and tax agencies’ capabilities. Building trust is challenging and demands extensive ongoing engagement with taxpayers while yielding gradual permanent results. This requires enhancing confidence in government; educating taxpayers; removing complexities; introducing transparency and accountability in tax agencies’ operations and the tax system; promoting procedural and distributive justice; and reversing perceptions of corruption through reconciliation and stakeholder inclusivity. Developing tax agencies’ capabilities requires upgrading outdated technologies, systems and processes; implementing governance and organisational reforms; introducing an oversight board; and recruiting and training skilled professionals.

The findings can assist policymakers and tax collection authorities in understanding why tax reforms fail and identifying potential solutions.

This study contributes to the emerging literature by exploring tax administration failures in developing countries. It contributes to the literature by engaging stakeholders to understand why reforms fail and potential solutions to stimulate tax revenues.

This study aims to investigate the most effective approach for governments and enterprises to combat desertification by considering the governance cycle. The focus is on understanding how the government can incentivize enterprises to actively engage in desertification combat efforts.

Both the government and the enterprise are treated as rational entities, making strategic choices for joint participation in combating desertification. Recognizing the dynamic nature of the desertification combat area, differential game models are employed to identify the optimal mode for combating desertification.

The findings underscore the significant influence of the governance cycle duration on the selection of desertification combat modes for government and enterprise. A cooperative mode is best suited to a short governance cycle, while an ecological subsidy mode is optimal for a longer cycle. Enhancing governance technology and shortening the governance cycle are conducive to combating desertification. Reducing taxes alone may not be an effective control strategy; rather, the government can better motivate enterprises by adopting tax rate policies aligned with the chosen governance mode.

This research contributes by elucidating the impact mechanism of the government cycle’s length on the desertification combat process. The results may offer valuable insights for governments in formulating strategies to encourage corporate participation in combating desertification and provide theoretical support for selecting optimal desertification combat modes.

The purpose of this study is to identify the drivers and future scenarios of Iran’s Social Security Organization.

The research is applied in terms of orientation and mixed in terms of methodology. In this research, the methods of theme analysis, root definitions, fuzzy Delphi and Cocoso were used. The theoretical population is the managers and senior experts of the social security organization, and the sampling method was done in a judgmental way. The tools of data collection were interviews and questionnaires. The interview tool was used to extract the main and subdrivers of the research and develop the scenarios.

Through theme analysis, 35 subdrivers were extracted in the form of economic, sociocultural, financial and investment, policy, marketing, environmental and legal themes. Due to the large number of subdrivers, these factors were screened with fuzzy Delphi. Eleven drivers had defuzzied coefficient higher than 0.7 and were selected for final prioritization. The final drivers were prioritized with the CoCoSo technique, and the two drivers of social security holdings governance and state of government revenues had the highest priority. Based on these two drivers, four scenarios of prosperity, resilient social security, unstable development and collapse have been developed.

Some of the suggestions of the research are: using the capacity of FinTechs and financial startups to invest the government revenues of the organization, using digital technologies such as business intelligence for more efficient decisions and developing corporate governance in the organization.

This study aims to examine the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on tax revenue in 34 developed and developing countries from 2006 to 2020.

Feasible generalised least squares (FGLS), a dynamic panel of a two-step system generalised method of moments (GMM) system and a pool mean group (PMG) panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach were used to compare the developed and developing countries. Basic estimators were used as pre-estimators and diagnostic tests were used to increase robustness.

The FGLS, a two-step system of GMM, PMG–ARDL estimator’s results showed that there was a significant negative long and positive short-term in most countries relationship between FDI inflows and tax revenue in developed countries. This study concluded that attracting investments can improve the quality of institutions despite high tax rates, leading to low tax revenue. Meanwhile, there was a significant positive long and negative short-term relationship between FDI inflows and tax revenue in the developing countries. The developing countries sought to attract FDI that could be used to create job opportunities and transfer technology to simultaneously develop infrastructure and impose a tax policy that would achieve high tax revenue.

The present study sheds light on the effect of FDI on tax revenue and compares developed and developing countries through the design and implementation of policies to create jobs, transfer technology and attain economic growth in order to assure foreign investors that they would gain continuous high profits from their investments.

The US Federal Government awards contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Many firms that rely on these contracts have appointed former government officials to their corporate boards in the hopes of securing government contracts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between these government experienced directors (GEDs) on boards and firms being awarded government contracts.

The paper compiles a panel data set from 2017 to 2020 for S&P 500 firms. This includes hand-collected data for government-experienced directors on boards. This is tested using both regression and analysis of variance methodologies.

Results find that former government officials on corporate boards increase the amount of government contracts secured by the firm, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of firms’ revenue. There are significant industry level effects for the health care and financials sectors. Government-experienced directors on boards are also positively related to firms receiving COVID contracts. Lobbying was not found to be related to the securing of regular government contracts but was positively related to firms obtaining COVID contracts.

This paper contributes to the literature by using panel data, an expanded definition of GEDs and data on COVID contracts. The “revolving door” between government and firms is paying off for companies.

This paper documents the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 34 literature, primarily in the areas of (1) accountability and improved reporting, (2) government-wide financial statements and accrual accounting and (3) infrastructure asset capitalization and the modified approach. The paper also evaluates the state of the research, recognizes implications for practice and standard setting, identifies knowledge gaps and proposes avenues for future research.

The authors identified the articles in this narrative review by searching Google Scholar and EBSCO for the years 2000 through 2023, using the keywords GASB 34, government-wide financial statements, government fund statements, infrastructure assets and modified approach.

This review finds that GASB 34 requirements improved accountability and reporting, but GASB can still make improvements. The addition of the MD&A section requirement improved readability but placed a burden on preparers. Analysis of government-wide statement research indicates that the accrual-based Statement of Net Assets provides value in credit decisions, while the accrual-based Statement of Activities does not. The research on infrastructure accounting requirements shows limited adoption of the modified approach and some comparability issues with choices involving capitalization thresholds, baselines and asset management systems (AMSs). Based on this review, the authors also present suggestions to further this line of research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first article that reviews over 20 years of GASB 34 related literature. The review and suggestions for future research are timely as GASB is in the process of reexamining some of GASB 34's requirements.

This paper aims to determine the tax potential of G20 countries and estimate the tax revenue they could generate. The study evaluates the effectiveness of tax revenue collection for G20 nations from 2008 to 2020 and investigates the relationship between tax collection efficiency and tax evasion. The study also examines the link between tax collection efficiency and a proxy for tax evasion through anti-corruption efforts.

The study assumes that tax collection is a function of gross domestic product (GDP), population, imports and price level. The study uses a stochastic frontier analysis to calculate the efficiency of tax collection. It estimates the loss in total tax collection due to inefficiency by comparing actual and best-practice tax collection.

The findings indicate that anti-corruption measures and technological advancements positively impact tax collection efficiency. Great Britain is identified as the most efficient country in tax collection, whereas Saudi Arabia is the least efficient. Germany has the highest losses in tax collection due to inefficiency, while Australia experiences the lowest losses in tax collection.

This study suggests several practical implications. For example, legislators and policymakers should pay more attention to anti-corruption policies. Also, tax agenesis should focus on better understanding variations in tax collection efficiency between countries and how they relate to tax evasion.

This study aims to investigate whether socially responsible businesses with corporate social expenditure are less prone to engaging in tax avoidance. The study also examines whether political connections moderate the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance.

The study uses ordinary least squares to analyse the panel data of all 30 listed banks on the Dhaka Stock Exchange covering 2012 to 2020. The study uses a set of alternative variables to check the robustness of the findings.

Confirming the corporate culture theory, the study findings indicate that the higher the firms’ CSR expenditure, the lower the tax avoidance. Contrarily, the moderating effect of political connection weakens the role of CSR in tax avoidance, implying that political relation makes the firms socially irresponsible. Besides, the findings document that firms with strong political connections are more likely to be tax aggressive by weakening the role of CSR. The findings imply that firms with weaker political connections are more socially responsible than firms with strong political ties.

The study provides the bank management and regulatory bodies valuable insights to take necessary actions so that they can easily monitor whether the banks follow their instructions regarding CSR and tax payments. As the politicians make the firm socially irresponsible, the regulatory bodies and bank management should not keep them or their relatives on the board.

The study contributes to the CSR and tax avoidance literature considering the moderating role of political connections in Bangladesh banking sector.