Local Government Failure: Why Does Australian Local Government Experience Permanent Financial Austerity?

Title
Local Government Failure: Why Does Australian Local Government Experience Permanent Financial Austerity?
Publication Date
2006
Author(s)
Dollery, Brian Edward
Crase, Lin
Byrnes, Joel David
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Routledge
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1080/10361140600848952
UNE publication id
une:3252
Abstract
Funding of local government systems in Australia has been falling relative to other tiers of government for the past 30 years with various adverse consequences, especially the decline of local government infrastructure. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by drawing on two relatively new theoretical strands in the political economy literature; the Australian theory of local government failure and the Wittman model of democratic efficiency. Three explanations are assessed: a traditional public finance perspective, Australian local government failure, and the institutional efficiency of democratic preference revelation. A secondary aim of the paper is to evaluate the implications of the Wittman model for the local government failure paradigm.
Link
Citation
Australian Journal of Political Science, 41(3), p. 339-353
ISSN
1363-030X
1036-1146
Start page
339
End page
353

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