Are There Trends in Local Finance? A Cautionary Note on Comparative Studies and Normative Models of Local Government Finance

There is little evidence of regional, let alone worldwide, trends in local finances, although trends within particular countries certainly exist. Given the path-dependent and context-specific nature of country experiences, one must be very careful both in categorizing the local finance systems found in different countries and in making cross-country empirical studies of local finances. In analyzing and comparing country experiences, it is important to be clear about the different (implicit or explicit) normative models to be found in the literature and exemplified in practice in different countries.