Search Results for: Fiscal Health

Can and should Canadian municipalities be borrowing more? If so, what measures and financing models should cities adopt to ensure additional borrowing is cost-effective and responsible?
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This paper analyzes economies of scale for two municipal services by considering how per-household municipal costs are affected by a municipality’s size. An econometric model is used to estimate costs associated with fire and police services using data for 445 municipalities in the Province of Ontario.
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Excessive borrowing by local and regional governments is an important source of macroeconomic instability in monetary unions. Credit markets often indulge this behaviour (lending too much at excessively low interest rates) if they expect national officials to bail out struggling local jurisdictions. Drawing on cross-national and Canadian data, Hanniman discussed the role and limits of fiscal federal institutions in shaping these bailout beliefs.
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Public parks and library systems across North America are experiencing fiscal distress. Short-term cost-cutting measures galvanize the community to oppose the reductions, but are there longer-term solutions to the funding problems?
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Presentation delivered by IMFG Director Enid Slack on August 22, 2012, at the International Property Tax Institute Conference in Sao Paolo.
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Presentation by IMFG Director Enid Slack on On October 4, 2012, sponsored by the Cities Centre, University of Toronto.
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In 2011, the City of Toronto initiated a service review and multi-year budgeting process to achieve long term fiscal sustainability. Toronto City Manager, Joe Pennachetti discusses the various transformational changes taken over the last year to stabilize the City's fiscal position, and future strategic directions the City can take to build an economically vibrant and inclusive Toronto.
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The Nordic countries are small, unitary, and have largely homogeneous populations. Municipalities are the most important agents in the decentralized public sector. There are lessons to be learned from country to country in the field of local government financing, but comparisons need to be made with care.
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