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The purpose of this paper is to review and analyze the literature on consolidated financial statements (CFS) in the public sector published from 1980 to 2015 in public sector accounting and management journals, and propose a future research agenda.

Adopting a structured literature review methodology, the authors investigate how the CFS literature is developing and what its focus is.

The authors identify five major topics: the definition of the consolidation area; the identification of the reporting entity; the private vs public sector accounting standard dichotomy; the relationship with the statistical rules; and the usefulness of CFS.

The authors analyze these topics, highlighting the growing implementation of CFS in different contexts (mainly focusing on governments outside the USA) and provide suggestions for future research.

This study aims to investigate transition patterns originating from the confiscation of mafia-type firms, examining public administrations and nonprofit organizations' roles.

This study investigates the case of “Calcestruzzi Ericina Libera,” a firm located in Sicily and confiscated from the Mafia in 1996. The analysis covers an extended period (approximately 25 years).

The empirical analysis documents the pivotal role of informal networks, comprising public administrations and nonprofit organizations. Confiscation processes are successful if transition management strategies are governed through a network and a collaborative approach is followed after the confiscation to support the firm.

Mafia-type firms have been examined academically from different perspectives, but few studies have focused on the steps taken after their confiscation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate budgetary solvency (BS) as a part of the financial condition of local governments (LGs), considering that the growing demand for public services is primarily affecting this variable.

The study investigates a sample of 132 Italian LGs with more than 50,000 inhabitants for the period 2005–2014. The authors obtain a set of indicators as proxies of BS, which serve as the dependent variable of a regression model aimed at testing several independent variables which the authors are interested in, namely, financial autonomy, current equilibrium, level of indebtedness and investments.

BS, as well as its three indicators—sustainability, flexibility and vulnerability—are positively related to financial autonomy and current equilibrium and negatively related to the level of indebtedness and investments.

To cover citizens’ demands for public services guaranteeing sound financial management, policymakers are advised to control both the balance between current revenue and expenses and the level of indebtedness while preserving financial autonomy from external sources.

This study adds fresh insight to the literature on financial health, emphasising the relevance of public financial management.

Intellectual capital (IC) is attracting increasing attention from scholars and practitioners in the private sector, while research in the public sector is still in its embryonic stage, especially in regards to local governments. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by channelling conceptual and empirical findings from the large body of IC literature.

The research investigates IC in action in the local government domain. A survey has been carried out involving both managers and politicians of all Italian local governments (ILGs) with more than 40,000 inhabitants. In order to define the constituents of each IC dimension perceived by ILGs, principal component analysis was used in investigating the results.

Results highlights how IC components are perceived in ILGs: human capital is a combination of aptitudes in pursuing target performances, sense of ownership and motivations; relational capital is a combination of values, relationships and acts; structural capital includes procedures and routines supporting the decision-making process, the ability of achieving objectives and handling changes.

While the research findings are limited due to being based on a survey in a single country, they present opportunities for future research regarding further testing of how IC is perceived in LGs in different context. The conclusion could be beneficial also for standard setters, providing a path to support the IC disclosure by LGs.

The paper contributes to a narrow strand of research – IC in LGs – adding new knowledge in “IC in action” research stream.

Research dealing with earnings management in the public-sector context is expanding. This paper aims to review the existing literature to understand how research is developing and points out gaps deserving further investigation.

This study uses the structured literature methodology to investigate the state-of-the-art and future directions of the literature on earnings management in the public sector. In total, 78 articles were explored.

The critical analysis of the literature shows that different but related streams of literature are emerging, focused on both a macro- and a micro-level perspective (mainly local governments and state-owned enterprises).

This study is the first that offers a comprehensive review of the literature on the emerging topic of earnings management in the public-sector context. The structured literature review enables the identification of future directions for the literature in this field.

This study investigates the transparency of budgets by examining its relationship with financial sustainability, which is a central area of research in the public-sector context.

Referring to the public value framework, a large sample of 110 countries has been investigated, implementing econometric models where the dependent variable is the Open Budget Index (OBI), published by the International Budget Partnership (IBP), and the test variables are different indicators of financial sustainability.

The results that emerge from the analysis suggest that budget transparency could be positively associated with the financial sustainability of governments, beyond the traditional aims of enhancing citizens' trust and participation.

This research offers important insights for policy areas, suggesting that improving budget transparency could be beneficial for public administrations because of the positive association with financial sustainability.

This study investigates drivers of local governments’ digitalization, focusing on contextual factors that can help explain the level of e-government development. Concretely, it examines financial, socioeconomic, and political factors that represent the local context where e-government initiatives are implemented.

A composite e-government index was used, adopting a holistic perspective to capture various features of e-government initiatives. The OLS estimator for linear regressions was used for the analysis based on a sample of Italian municipalities in 2023. The Tobit estimator was additionally implemented to check for the robustness of the results.

Empirical findings suggest that municipalities with higher indebtedness tend to show lower digitalization levels. Economic and social variables are also relevant factors, while the political orientation of the governing party is not significant. This indirectly documents that e-government initiatives play a strategic role despite the political ideology.

This study avoids referring to a technological determinism perspective and examines the role of the institutional and operational context, highlighting the need to unveil and explain differences among local governments rather than focusing on similarities.

This study aims to explore natural resources from a public sector accounting perspective, focusing on their definitions, classifications, recognition criteria and disclosure requirements provided by different standard-setters and regulators at both international and national levels.

By reviewing accounting frameworks for natural resources, this study extrapolates accounting dilemmas around the debate on natural resource accounting, using the dialogic accounting perspective as a theoretical framework.

Natural resources cannot be defined as a single category. Various categories have different characteristics, requiring different standards to recognize multiple orientations. This avoids monetary reductionism. Furthermore, uncertainty, both in existence and measurement, may disqualify some of these resources from being considered assets. Perhaps, concentrating on the flow of services derived from natural resources is better than focusing on their valuation. This may lead to a split-asset approach (flows and underlying assets) for certain resources. This study’s findings indicate that public-sector entities should consider preparing a separate non-financial report regarding the management of natural resources with the objective of maintaining inter-generational equity.

This study contributes to the debate on natural resources from an accounting and reporting perspective, highlighting the importance of holding public-sector entities accountable for the use of natural resources.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible influence of financial health of local governments (LGs) on the re-election of politicians.

The study investigates a sample of 129 Italian LGs with more than 50,000 inhabitants for the period 2008–2014, resulting in 903 observations. A regression model has been implemented, where the dependent variable refers to the probability of re-election, and different dimensions of financial health are the independent variables.

Budgetary and service-level solvency influence positively the probability of re-election of the major, while the ability of the government to generate liquidity to pay its short-term debts is not statistically relevant. Moreover, the sustainability dimension of budgetary solvency is more relevant than the flexibility and vulnerability dimensions.

To be re-elected, local politicians are advised to pay attention to and preserve the social welfare of citizens with the available resources.

This study adds fresh insight to the literature on financial health, emphasising the relevance of public financial management in the re-election of local politicians.