出版社：Fachbereich Finanzwissenschaft und Infrastrukturpolitik, TU Wien
摘要：Austrian municipalities face manifold challenges regarding the sustainability of their budgetary policies, especially concerning public debt. On the one hand, municipalities are closely monitored and supervised by upper-level governments. Local borrowing is confi ned to predefi ned cases with respect to extra-ordinary expenditure. On the other hand, municipal discretion over expenditure and revenue is limited. In the current paper, we test whether municipalities’ budgetary policies were sustainable in the sense of Bohn’s (1998) sustainability test. We fi nd that the debt limits were quite eff ective resulting in stationary debt levels, and in signifi cant and suffi cient reactions of the municipal primary surplus to increases in 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 vital infrastructure.
