The global financial and economic crisis that hit Western countries between 2007 and 2008 has generated an extensive literature. Several policy responses are now recognized, based on the way governments reallocate scarce public resources across budget categories; these approaches have a differential impact on the sustainability of cuts and on performance and trust. What determines the choice of one approach over another is a relevant, yet unexplored, research question. The article highlights the factors driving the adoption of specific crisis management approaches. A conceptual model and key propositions derived from the literature are applied to the case studies of six local governments. A comparative analysis of the interactions among internal and external determinants through a multi-year timeframe provides valuable insights that improve our understanding of crisis management.
Much has changed over the past few years regarding the financial and nonfinancial information Italian Local Governments (LGs) publish even as a consequence of the process of externalization of local public services. This paper is aimed at describing the causes and the effects of the administrative reform process that interested Italian LGs and at identifying the possible different dimensions of LG performance. In particular, this paper distinguishes among performance achieved by LGs strictu sensu (general performance), performance attained by the municipal group (group performance), and performance achieved by all other producers of local public services (global performance). The group and global dimensions of performance are briefly discussed, as well as the tools used to measure them.
This paper examines the norms and practices for infrastructure, art and heritage assets in six cities, across three European countries, to determine how the national norms of accrual accounting compared with each other, and with IPSAS, and how the practices in each city compared with the norms. We identify significant diversity between actual practices and the norms imposed by national policy‐makers or set by IPSAS. Given that a longstanding concern of the literature has been on whether these kinds of assets should be included in governmental balance sheets and operating statements at all, it is striking how often the question was settled in practice by excluding art and heritage assets, even when this meant non‐compliance with national norms. In our three countries, it is clear that comparability of the financial statements between countries was not a concern of policy‐makers, and comparability between cities within each country not a concern of preparers.
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