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This paper presents a model of government saving in order to examine several questions regarding the personal and professional saving preferences or inclinations of a national sample of local government finance managers. First, is personal propensity to save related to a preference for local government saving? Second, is personal propensity to spend related to the finance managers' opinions about their local government's spending? Third, what are the determinants of finance managers' propensity to save or spend, both personally and for their local government? Results confirm that finance managers have a personal propensity to save and a positive view toward local government saving. The opposite, propensity to spend, is also influenced by personal preference. Determinants of these behaviors are explored.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore inter-organizational interactions that might result in prolonged decoupling between central governments' ideas and local governments' practices during the reform of an institutional field (i.e. healthcare).

The paper is based on a qualitative study of the centrally directed reform of the healthcare financing system in Ukraine and focusses on practices and reform ideas from 1991 to 2016.

The findings show that, for more than 25 years, local governments, as providers of healthcare services, faced two major problems associated with drawbacks of the healthcare financial system: line-item budgeting and fragmentation of healthcare funds. Over 25 years, central government's attempts to reform the healthcare financing system did not comprehensively or systematically address the stated problems. The reformers' ideas seemed to focus on creating reform agendas and issuing new laws, instead of paying attention to challenges in local practices.

This article has two main points that are relevant for practitioners. First, it calls for greater involvement from local actors during all stages of public sector reforms, in order to ensure the relevance of developed reform strategies. Second, it points to potential challenges that central governments may face when conducting healthcare financing system reforms in transitional economies.

The paper's contribution is twofold: it outlines reasons for problematic implementation of healthcare financing system reform in Ukraine and explains them through a “reverse decoupling” concept.

In this introductory essay, the authors describe a new public finance characterized by enduring revenue constraints; mounting budgetary claims from accruing liabilities for post-retirement benefits for government employees, rising health care costs, and an aging population; and uncertainty about future budgetary demands and resource limitations. The new public finance is described as a convergence of economic and demographic forces with past practices that increased the fiscal vulnerability of states and local governments. The authors explain that states and local governments will not overcome challenges by relying upon traditional ways of thinking about and conducting business but instead must revamp frameworks for practice. Symposium papers are described as tackling several of the most pressing issues facing governments today with an eye towards rethinking customary approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the difference of credit enhancement of variously secured bonds issued by local government financing platform bond (LGFPB).

The approaches to secure the bonds usually include mortgage, collateral, guarantee, etc.

Using a sample of LGFPBs issued during the 2007-2013 period, the authors find that all of the approaches to secure the bonds would increase the bond rating and that compounded approaches have a higher credit enhancement effect than single approaches. Among these approaches, the requirement of collateral has the strongest enhancement effect. Moreover, the authors find that the guarantee provided by a state-owned bank or enterprise increases the bond rating more than the guarantee provided by other local government financing platforms.

The findings in this study suggest that the credit enhancement would be deeply affected by the approach used to secure the bond.

These results can help the local government make better decisions when issuing bond.

This study empirically analyzes the different credit enhancement approaches for securing LGPFBs for the first time and contributes to the literature regarding credit ratings of local government bonds.

The relationship between central and local government in Britain has changed rapidly since the early 1970s. Several factors have worked to produce an increasingly difficult central‐local relationship. These include: a gradual loss of confidence in the rates; increased use of grants for different purposes; the use of local government as an economic regulator, and changes in the economic and political landscape in Britain. Since the early 1980s, the relationship has altered enormously.

During the 1990s many states used budget surpluses to refinance public education and provide property tax relief. This paper uses a case study of Kansas to assess the sustainability of state-initiated property tax cuts. It finds that the cuts are not fully sustainable over time because of court and federal mandates that require additional spending on education, economic fluctuations that reduce the ability of state budgets to maintain a given share of education spending, and demands for local control to allow school districts to spend more or less than state-mandated levels. The paper also argues that the property tax is essential to economic efficiency and local control.

An alternative system of local government finance is proposed based on two taxes—property and residents'—to finance different types of services and promote local accountability and decentralisation.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.