Geographies of Local Government Stress after the Great Recession

Kim, Yun-Ji; Warner, Mildred E.

doi:10.1111/spol.12307

Cited by 35 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…They also find that overall, cross‐state inequality is consistent over time, but that the changes associated with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996 yielded greater cross‐state inequality in related programming. Kim and Warner () have identified similar results of state decentralization to the local level. They examine the response of cities and counties to fiscal stress introduced by the Great Recession and find evidence that devolution of responsibility, reductions of state assistance, and constraints on local revenue‐raising authority have resulted in spatial inequalities in service provision.…”

Section: What Factors Influence Redistributive Social Policy Decisions?mentioning

confidence: 68%

Social Policy Perspectives on Economic Inequality in Wealthy Countries

Giordono¹,

Jones²,

Rothwell³

2019

Policy Studies Journal

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This essay reviews the policy‐oriented literature on economic inequality in wealthy countries published from 2008 to 2018. We focus on this decade because it is a period bookended by both the beginnings of the Great Recession of 2008–2009 as well as the recovery. During this timeframe, attention to inequality by social policy scholars grew substantially, which we argue reflects an interest in both inequality trends as well as redistributive social policy. We observe in the literature sustained efforts to understand both the relationship between social policy and economic inequality, as well as determinants of changes to redistributive social policy. We also note substantial variation in research traditions, as well as opportunities to address substantive, methodological, and theoretical gaps. Our review summarizes the approaches and findings from the literature and discusses the implications of the findings for the study of economic inequality within the academic field of public policy.

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Section: What Factors Influence Redistributive Social Policy Decisions?mentioning

confidence: 68%

Social Policy Perspectives on Economic Inequality in Wealthy Countries

Giordono¹,

Jones²,

Rothwell³

2019

Policy Studies Journal

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“…Alberta) showed less privatization. The South and West also have larger municipalities (in population) and more poverty (Kim and Warner ), and prior research has found that privatization is lower in such higher cost markets (Hefetz et al ).…”

Section: Results: Local Government Service Provision and Deliverymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fiscal stress has led to the search for alternative revenue sources. Developer impact fees, user fees, sales taxes, hotel taxes, and tax increment financing have become popular, especially in fast‐growing markets (Weber ; Kim and Warner ). Some scholars see the use of these financial tools as acquiescence to a neoliberal ethos that shifts fiscal burdens to the household (Peck , ).…”

Section: Public Services After the Great Recessionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pragmatic Municipalism: Local Government Service Delivery After the Great Recession

Kim

Warner

2016

Public Administration

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103

142

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Since the Great Recession, some have argued that local governments have become ‘austerity machines’ that cut and privatize services and undermine unions. We conducted a national survey of US municipalities in 2012 to examine how service provision level and delivery methods are related to local stress and capacity, controlling for community need and place characteristics. We find that local governments are balancing the pressures of stress with community needs. They use alternative revenue sources and service delivery methods (privatization and cooperation) to maintain services. Unionization is not a barrier to innovation. Further, we find that ethnically diverse suburbs are providing more services than other suburbs, thus acting more like metro core cities. We find that the Great Recession has not dramatically shifted local government behaviour to a ‘new normal’ of fiscal austerity. Instead, we find municipalities practising ‘pragmatic municipalism’ to maintain their public role.

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“…In many US states there were substantial cuts in services, wages, benefits and employment at local level (Wolff & Fraad-Wolff, 2011), all of which have had negative effects on local economies (Glasmeier & Lee-Chuvala, 2011). Now there is a call for more redistributive state policies given that decentralisation of services provision by US local authorities has exacerbated spatial inequalities -in particular, rural disadvantage has deepened (Kim & Warner, 2018).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Austerity and Irish local government expenditure since the Great Recession

2018

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This paper sets out to establish the extent of austerity in the Irish local government system during and after the Great Recession. Austerity is measured by the adjusted change in local government expenditure from peak to trough years, and is analysed by type of expenditure, service division and local authority. Stripping out the change in local government current spending that is due to expenditure reassignments reveals that the austerity-related reduction in local government operating expenditure is not as large as often portrayed. As for other findings, there are sizeable differences across the aforementioned classifications, with, most notably, capital expenditure cuts far exceeding cuts in current expenditure. The largest decreases in total spending were on roads and housing services, and small rural county councils endured the most austerity, as measured by the initial reductions in current expenditure. In terms of policy implications, the biggest concern is the large infrastructural deficit that needs to be tackled, arising from austerity cuts in capital expenditure imposed at both central and local government level. As the economy recovers from the Great Recession and the subsequent era of austerity, failure to address this problem will hinder Ireland’s international competitiveness, constrain the economy’s future growth rate and result in impoverishment of public services at local level.

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Geographies of Local Government Stress after the Great Recession

Cited by 35 publications

References 60 publications

Social Policy Perspectives on Economic Inequality in Wealthy Countries

Social Policy Perspectives on Economic Inequality in Wealthy Countries

Pragmatic Municipalism: Local Government Service Delivery After the Great Recession

Austerity and Irish local government expenditure since the Great Recession

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