Towards a comprehensive assessment system of local government fiscal health

Abstract

Understanding fiscal health, also commonly referred to as financial condition, is key to sound decision making and the proper functioning of local government. Nonetheless there is no agreed upon way to measure fiscal health. We argue that the use of a conceptual framework is essential in furthering our understanding of measuring and assessing local government fiscal health. In this study we offer a framework and a set of financial accounting indicators visualizing fiscal health on the short and long term, taking into account the existing liabilities and local government obligations towards its constituents. The study draws on the theoretical and empirical analysis of corporate bankruptcy prediction models and local government fiscal distress models. We develop a possible comprehensive set of fiscal health indicators and compare it with existing empirical studies of local government fiscal health. The model captures current performance in four solvency dimensions (cash, budget, service-level and long term) and allows for predictions of future performance, taking into account risks (predictors of possible future financial stress) and capabilities (opportunities to strengthen future financial health). We tested our model by reviewing 33 empirical studies and found that we could allocate all indicators used to the dimensions of our framework. No empirical study appears to address all dimensions. The selection of performance dimensions is partly driven by the studies’ research objectives.