Local Governance and the Issue of Fiscal Health

Abstract

Since the start of the Great Recession, the issue of fiscal health possesses a prominent place in the management of local governments. To ensure the government’s continuation and its provision of services, administrators must balance the demands of the public with the resources it has available. Although a number of measurement approaches appear to help administrators, there is a lack of agreement on how fiscal health should be measured. To aid in the management of local governments and push the academic literature forward, this article investigates the measurement systems of financial condition established in the literature while considering their implications on governance.