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Article: Municipal fiscal strain: indicators and causes.
- Article from:
- Government Finance Review
- Article date:
- June 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Government Finance Officers Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Ratios of indicators both internal and external to government are used to determine if a city is fiscally strained in this model, which conceives of fiscal stress as a lack of adaptation by a government to its private-sector environment.
Twenty years ago, no one spoke of fiscal strain, but now it is a central concern for American cities. The history of fiscal strain goes back to the depressions, especially the 1930s. There were a few studies of defaults then, but from the 1930s to the New York fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s, municipal bonds were so safe that no one wanted serious analysis. Yet with the New York fiscal crisis, it became clear that if New York City ...