Economic Effects of Municipal Government Institutions

This paper presents an analysis of employment and compensation practices under alternative institutions of municipal government which demonstrates that institutional variations have significant, important, and predictable effects upon outcomes in municipal labor markets. Municipal institutions in which a single official is responsible for office performance provide that official with incentives to emphasize efficiency in the production of municipal services. Institutions in which responsibility is shared provide individual officials with incentives to emphasize the allocation of municipal resources to their particular constituencies, among whom municipal employees may be prominent. Independently, city managers and mayors chosen through direct election reduce levels of employment and increase employee compensation. Managers offer compensation packages which emphasize nonwage components. In cities which have both institutions, competition between the two nullifies employment reductions and exacerbates compensation increases. Employment increases with the age of the manager's office. City council members chosen through at-large or nonpartisan elections increase levels of both employment and compensation. Compensation packages under both emphasize current components. With both reforms, employment and compensation increases are compounded.

Budget Manual for Tennessee Cities

The purpose of this handbook is to provide another view into the budget preparation process. With the staff and other resources available in City Hall, you will be able to develop a “plan for spending money” which enables you to show to the public how you intend to spend their tax dollars, as well as show the controls you will establish by the spending limits you set. The budgetary controls become the yardstick by which the progress of spending money can be measured. Also, the budget serves as a yardstick for measuring the progress of the town’s money collection during the year

The Mayor of a Municipality – Competences, Qualifications, Current Status in the Slovak Republic

The mandatory authorities – the municipal office and the mayor of the municipality – play an irreplaceable role at the municipal level. Both bodies are elected. These authorities influence the direction of municipal development in the upcoming term of office, the municipal representatives’ protection of citizens’ needs and interests as well as fulfilment of the tasks and obligations imposed by the law. The main aim of the article is to clarify the importance and seriousness of the mayor as the highest representative of the municipal government in the Slovak Republic. Another aim is to present new realities connected with the mayor’s office as well as new requirements associated with it

A General Equilibrium Simulation Study of Subsidies to Municipal Expenditures

In the United States, local government expenditures are heavily subsidized through a variety of sources. This paper explores theoretically and then simulates empirically the effects of eliminating either of two federal subsidies encouraging local government expenditures: (1) income tax deductibility of local tax payments, and (2) the tax exempt status of interest on municipal bonds.We find that eliminating the deductibility of local taxes raises the utility of all income groups, and of home owners as well as of renters.Making interest on municipal bonds taxable, however, substantially hurts the very rich, who lose a tax shelter, and may hurt the very poor, who pay more for municipal services. While most people gain, the net gain is very small.

Assessing and Explaining the Relative Efficiency of Local Government: Evidence for Portuguese Municipalities

In this paper we measure the relative efficiency of Portuguese local municipalities in a non-parametric framework approach using Data Envelopment Analysis. As an output measure we compute a composite local government output indicator of municipal performance. This allows assessing the extent of municipal spending that seems to be “wasted” relative to the “best-practice” frontier. Our results suggest that most municipalities could achieve, on average, the same level of output using fewer resources, improving performance without necessarily increasing municipal spending. Inefficiency scores are afterwards explained by means of a Tobit analysis with a set of relevant explanatory variables playing the role of non-discretionary inputs..local government; expenditure efficiency; technical efficiency; DEA; Tobit models.

Representation in Municipal Government

Municipal governments play a vital role in American democracy, as well as in governments around the world. Despite this, little is known about the degree to which cities are responsive to the views of their citizens. In the past, the unavailability of data on the policy preferences of citizens at the municipal level has limited scholars' ability to study the responsiveness of municipal government. We overcome this problem by using recent advances in opinion estimation to measure the mean policy conservatism in every U.S. city and town with a population above 20,000 people. Despite the supposition in the literature that municipal politics are non-ideological, we find that the policies enacted by cities across a range of policy areas correspond with the liberal-conservative positions of their citizens on national policy issues. In addition, we consider the influence of institutions, such as the presence of an elected mayor, the popular initiative, partisan elections, term limits, and at-large elections. Our results show that these institutions have little consistent impact on policy responsiveness in municipal government. These results demonstrate a robust role for citizen policy preferences in determining municipal policy outcomes, but cast doubt on the hypothesis that simple institutional reforms enhance responsiveness in municipal governments

Ensuring State and Municipal Solvency

Presents July 2010 discussions among government officials, academics, capital markets experts, and others on strategies for alleviating state and municipal budget problems, including short-term federal aid to reward active restructuring of finances

Municipal Government Structure, Unionization, and the Wages of Fire Fighters

[Excerpt] Also important to any analysis of labor costs in the public sector today is, of course, the effect of collective bargaining on wages. For reasons described in a recent article by Orley Ashenfelter, fire fighters provide an excellent test of union wage effects at the city level. This study will therefore use fire fighters as an example with which to assess and compare the effects on wages of both unionism and the structure of municipal government. This article is in many respects an extension of the excellent study by Asehenfelter, who examined the effect of the International Association of Fire Fighters on wages of firemen over the 1960-66 period and concluded that the union did have a statistically significant impact. The present study analyzes the wages of firemen in 1969, adds the new variable of government structure, and provides a more accurate estimate of the wage effect of unionism through four changes in approach

Central Government Poverty Policy and Local Deviation: A Comparison of \u3ci\u3eDibao\u3c/i\u3e Regulations Across State Levels

The Chinese government has implemented a means-tested social security net for the poorest known as dibao. We compare dibao legislation from the State Council, the Shandong provincial government, and the Qingdao municipal government. As a case study, this comparative analysis of dibao legislation across different state levels and time periods provides a method to analyze differences between central and local government levels. We show that local governments are able to subvert the intentions of the central government by adding sections and altering the language in key passages. This type of horizontal and vertical reading of multiple texts reveals priorities and differences between government levels in ways that are not apparent in any single text