caa a22 4500 605534381 CHVBK 20210128100842.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150801xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10663-014-9261-3 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10663-014-9261-3 Sustainability of local government debt: a case study of Austrian municipalities [Elektronische Daten] [Johann Bröthaler, Michael Getzner, Gottfried Haber] Austrian municipalities face manifold challenges with respect the sustainability of their budgetary policies, especially concerning public (municipal) debt. On the one hand, municipalities are closely monitored and supervised by upper-level governments. Local borrowing is confined to pre-defined cases with respect to extra-ordinary expenditure. Both dimensions come close to constitute an at least soft debt limit (budget constraint) for municipalities. On the other hand, municipal discretion over expenditure and revenue is limited. In the current paper, we test whether municipalities' budgetary policies were sustainable by means of an adapted version of Bohn's (Q J Econ 113:949-963, 1998) sustainability test. We find that municipal debt limits were quite effective and resulted in stationary debt levels, and in significant and sufficient reactions of the municipal primary surplus to increasing public debt. However, in order to achieve such sustainable policies, municipalities have widely cut investments in local infrastructure. From a long-term perspective, such development is problematic with respect to the quality of available infrastructure. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2014 Municipal public debt nationallicence Local governments nationallicence Sustainability of fiscal policies nationallicence Political economy of fiscal policies nationallicence Off-budget debt nationallicence Bröthaler Johann Center of Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy, Vienna University of Technology, Resselgasse 5, 1040, Vienna, Austria aut Getzner Michael Center of Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy, Vienna University of Technology, Resselgasse 5, 1040, Vienna, Austria aut Haber Gottfried Economic and Fiscal Policy Research Unit, Danube University Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Strasse 30, 3500, Krems, Austria aut Empirica Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 42/3(2015-08-01), 521-546 0340-8744 42:3<521 2015 42 10663 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-014-9261-3 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-014-9261-3 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bröthaler Johann Center of Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy, Vienna University of Technology, Resselgasse 5, 1040, Vienna, Austria aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Getzner Michael Center of Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy, Vienna University of Technology, Resselgasse 5, 1040, Vienna, Austria aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Haber Gottfried Economic and Fiscal Policy Research Unit, Danube University Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Strasse 30, 3500, Krems, Austria aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Empirica Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 42/3(2015-08-01), 521-546 0340-8744 42:3<521 2015 42 10663