State and Local Debt Burdens in the 1980s: A Study in Contrast

Motivations, Obstacles, and Resources

“…We expect these two variables to have a positive effect, as states with a more stringent limit on issuing bonds might be more likely to look for private-finance PPP as an alternative. the last variable is the ratio of state debt to annual state revenue (DEb/REV), a common measure of state debt burden (bahl & Duncombe, 1993). We expect a positive effect because states with higher debt burdens may be less able to borrow and thus more likely to resort to private finance.…”

Local Government Budget Stabilization

“…Although this funding from the state functions in most important respects as an additional state aid program (Duncombe andYinger 1998, 2001), it is distributed according to a much different formula than other state aid programs and is not recorded in Annual Financial Reports as either property tax or state aid revenue.…”

“…Therefore, these geographic overlapping jurisdictions would share overlapping resource bases. This should be taken into account, making the evaluation of debt affordability more complex (Bahl and Duncombe 1993;Hildreth and Miller 2002). Martell's study filled this gap and suggests that the fragmentation of multiple overlapping jurisdictions restricts debt growth, and that metropolitan districts tend to bear greater debt (Martell 2007).…”

Debt Diligence: How States Manage the Borrowing Function

“…6 Roy Bahl and William Duncombe separated this nonguaranteed debt into two categories, public and private, when seeking the determinants of variation in debt burdens. 7 Public nonguaranteed debt includes revenue bonds and special and general appropriation bonds, which include capital lease arrangements and certificates of participation. The authors' findings conformed to theoretical expectations, with demand factors typically associated with higher debt burdens.…”