Municipal utilities and local public finance: A simultaneous model

Deno, Kevin T.; Mehay, Stephen L.

doi:10.1007/bf00124805

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(9 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In a study of 100 Georgia cities between 2005 and 2009, Arapis (2013) found that enterprise activities were an important contributor to increased own-source revenues but tended to decrease governmental expenditures. This finding goes against findings by DiLorenzo (1982), Deno and Mehay (1988), and Tyer (1989) who found that enterprise operations allowed government the ability to spend more. Vogt (1978) found rather a substitution effect, where enterprise surpluses are used to replace other own-source revenues.…”

Section: Literature Reviewcontrasting

confidence: 78%

“…In both Georgia and Florida, with few exceptions enterprise transfers were substitutive in that they merely replaced lowered revenue from other sources which supports the findings of Vogt (1978) and Arapis (2013). Enterprise transfers did not generally fund increased expenditures over baseline as was predicted by DiLorenzo (1982), Deno and Mehay (1988) and Tyer (1989). It should be recognized that the substitutive nature of enterprise revenues noted here may follow this pattern during periods of recession or slow economic growth when the focus is on maintaining operations at a reasonable level but may result in increased expenditures during expansions or moderate- to high-growth periods.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…Second, enterprise activities were critically important during and after the recession as noted in arguments by Arapis (2013), DiLorenzo (1982), Deno and Mehay (1988), Tyer (1989) and Vogt (1978). While there are some limitations on transfers from enterprise activities, they were found to be easily circumvented.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Municipal response to the Great Recession

Christian

Bush

2018

JPBAFM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the Great Recession on small- to medium-sized municipalities within the states of Georgia and Florida using a newly developed set of quantitative indices. Design/methodology/approach An examination of the methods and strategies utilized by individual cities to maintain public service levels despite distressed revenues is performed. From the data, performance measures are developed and used to evaluate the efficacy of the various strategies used by the cities. Outcomes of Georgia municipalities were compared to similarly sized Florida municipalities to study how underlying differences in tax structures and economies might have affected those outcomes. Findings Georgia and Florida municipalities relied on very different strategies for surviving the recession and its aftermath. Enterprise activities were critically important in both states with transfers to or from governmental activities rationalized in various ways. While Georgia is generally anti-property tax, more than half the Georgia municipalities relied on property tax increases to survive. Municipalities were unable to count on increased intergovernmental revenues during the recession. Finally, even with a tourist activity advantage, Florida municipalities fared only marginally better during and just after the recession, and fared worse four to six years post-recession. Practical implications The measures developed in this study provide a new, customizable methodology for the evaluation of financial condition that does not require in-depth comparisons to peers. Social implications Small- and medium-sized cities, and especially those in rural areas, are worthy of targeted research to better understand their unique problems. Originality/value This research is novel in utilizing a fiscal condition methodology that can be applied to a single municipality and does not require comparisons to peers for validity. However, it represents a very intuitive and customizable tool for making comparisons between municipalities of any size when such comparisons are desired. Additionally, the focus of this study is on small- to medium-sized municipalities which generally do not receive as much research attention as larger cities.

show abstract