Local Public Finance Regulation in Southeast Europe: A Comparison of Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia

Local public finance regulation differs among countries. The intention of this chapter is to compare current regulatory systems, uncover similarities and differences and provide some cautious explanations on developments. As example, three Southeast European countries—Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia—will be analysed. These countries share a similar history. However, their local public finance regulation developed in different directions, with different reform efforts and different budget constraints. This chapter investigates the regulatory regimes of local public finance, tries to explain the paths these three countries followed and examines the ensuing results. It starts with a description of local government structure and local government finance, followed by a comparison of fiscal rules and supervision. These three countries are still more similar than some of them would like to admit. This holds true especially when it comes to the availability of reliable statistical data, hesitation in substantially reforming their local government systems, simplifying financing and raising local government autonomy. Referring to local government public finance itself, Croatia and Slovenia have stricter regulations than Serbia, as EU accession served as a driver for the quality of fiscal governance.