IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ays/ispwps/paper1319.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating Fiscal Health of Cities: A Methodological Framework for Developing Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Simanti Bandyopadhyay

    (National Institute of Public Finance and Policy New Delhi)

Abstract

The main objective of the paper is to propose a framework in which fiscal health conditions can be assessed and the main determinants affecting fiscal health can be identified, inspite of severe data constraints. The paper draws on big urban agglomerations in India as well as smaller cities as a sample and attempts to identify the difference, if any, in the main determinants for variations in fiscal health conditions across different size classes of cities. To compensate for the lack of statistical rigor in the estimations of expenditure needs and revenue capacities, we propose a framework which analyses the ratio of expenditure needs to revenue capacity by fitting an econometric model. It is a two-step method, in the first stage we estimate the expenditure need and revenue capacity separately by simple methods discussed above. In the second stage we take the ratio of expenditure need and revenue capacity as an indicator of financial performance of a ULB and fit an econometric model to explain the performance of ULBs on the basis of factors which are likely to affect the performance of the ULBs. We find that the role of the higher tiers of the government is important in bigger and smaller size class of cities in their financial management. However, for bigger cities we find that the own source revenues can also play an important role in bringing down the fiscal ratio. In the smaller ULBs the role of the demand indicators is not that prominent but the cost indicators play a relatively prominent role. In case of bigger agglomerations, the demand indicators are more prominent than the cost indicators.

Suggested Citation

  • Simanti Bandyopadhyay, 2013. "Estimating Fiscal Health of Cities: A Methodological Framework for Developing Countries," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1319, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
  • Handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://icepp.gsu.edu/files/2015/03/ispwp1319.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simanti Bandyopadhyay & M. Govinda Rao, 2009. "Fiscal Health of Selected Indian Cities," Development Economics Working Papers 22970, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    2. Simanti Bandyopadhyay, 2011. "Finances of Urban Local Bodies in Jharkhand: Some Issues and Comparisons," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1113, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    3. Duncombe, William & Yinger, John, 2000. "Financing higher student performance standards: the case of New York State," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 363-386, October.
    4. Andrew Reschovsky & Jennifer Imazeki, 2003. "Let No Child Be Left Behind: Determining the Cost of Improving Student Performance," Public Finance Review, , vol. 31(3), pages 263-290, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simanti Bandyopadhyay, 2014. "Some New Thoughts on Performance Evaluation of Governments: An Application to Indian Cities," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1430, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    2. Simanti Bandyopadhyay, 2014. "Municipal Finance in India: Some Critical Issues," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1421, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Simanti Bandyopadhyay, 2014. "Some New Thoughts on Performance Evaluation of Governments: An Application to Indian Cities," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1430, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    2. Tae Ho Eom & William Duncombe & Phuong Nguyen-Hoang & John Yinger, 2014. "The Unintended Consequences of Property Tax Relief: New York’s STAR Program," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 9(4), pages 446-480, October.
    3. Bo Zhao, 2023. "Estimating the cost function of connecticut public K–12 education: implications for inequity and inadequacy in school spending," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 439-470, July.
    4. Duncombe, William & Yinger, John, 2005. "How much more does a disadvantaged student cost?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 513-532, October.
    5. Simanti Bandyopadhyay, 2012. "Performance Evaluation of Urban Local Governments: A Case for Indian Cities," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1232, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    6. Simanti Bandyopadhyay, 2015. "Financial management and service delivery: a nonparametric analysis for Indian cities," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(3), pages 721-751, May.
    7. Bo Zhao, 2020. "How to Design a State Education Aid Formula That Is Equitable, Adequate, and Politically Feasible: The Case of Connecticut," Working Papers 21-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    8. Roy Bahl, 2012. "Metropolitan City Finances in India: Options for A New Fiscal Architecture," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1233, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    9. Andrew Feltenstein & Nour Abdul-Razzak & Jeffrey Condon & Biplab Kumar Datta, 2015. "Tax Evasion, the Provision of Public Infrastructure and Growth: A General Equilibrium Approach to Two Very Different Countries, Egypt and Mauritius," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 24(suppl_2), pages 43-72.
    10. Eric J. Brunner & Stephen L. Ross, 2009. "Is the Median Voter Decisive? Evidence of 'Ends Against the Middle' From Referenda Voting Patterns," Working papers 2009-02, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised May 2010.
    11. Howard Chernick & Santino Piazza, 2016. "Fiscal gaps in amalgamated metropolitan areas: The case of Turin and Genoa," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(1), pages 137-171.
    12. M. Govinda Rao & Bird, Richard M., 2010. "Urban governance and finance in India," Working Papers 10/68, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    13. William Duncombe & John Yinger, 2001. "Does School Consolidation Cut Costs?," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 33, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    14. Roy Bahl, 2017. "Metropolitan city finances in Asia and the Pacific region: issues, problems and reform options," MPDD Working Paper Series WP/17/04, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    15. William Duncombe & Anna Lukemeyer & John Yinger, 2008. "The No Child Left Behind Act," Public Finance Review, , vol. 36(4), pages 381-407, July.
    16. repec:max:cprpbr:28 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Yusun Kim, 2021. "How Does a Reduction in Mandated Medicaid Spending Affect Local Fiscal Behaviors? Evidence from New York State," Public Finance Review, , vol. 49(4), pages 495-547, July.
    18. Gigliotti, Philip & Sorensen, Lucy C., 2018. "Educational resources and student achievement: Evidence from the Save Harmless provision in New York State," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 167-182.
    19. Shah, Anwar, 2012. "Grant financing of metropolitan areas : a review of principles and worldwide practices," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6002, The World Bank.
    20. Howard Chernick & Andrew Reschovsky, 2023. "Measuring the Fiscal Health of U.S. Cities," IMFG Papers 63, University of Toronto, Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance.
    21. Pablo González & Alejandra Mizala & Pilar Romaguera, 2002. "Recursos diferenciados a la educación subvencionada en Chile," Documentos de Trabajo 150, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1319. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Paul Benson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ispgsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.