Local Government Borrowing
Financing through the use of credit allows local governments to enlarge their
revenues beyond the framework enabled by their taxation powers, the resources
derived from other levels of government, and their administrative capacity to
collect the first and manage the second (see King 1988). Experiences in developed
countries differ, but the significance attached to the “golden rule” is well
known: local borrowing should be restricted to schemes related to mediumand
long-term investment or increase in share capital (for experience in
Europe, see Dexia 1998 and European Union,Committee of the Regions 2001).
Multiple options are available for controlling subnational debt. It is possible
to distinguish five methods for achieving properly coordinated behavior
by actors in a scheme with multiple levels of government. The most
extreme methods are a straightforward application of market discipline or
an absolute ban on contracting debt obligations. Between these extremes are
cooperation among government levels, administrative controls, and rulebased
approaches (see Ahmad 1999; Ter-Minassian and Craig 1997;World
Bank 2000).
Implicit in these options is a strong assumption that higher levels of
government will not resort to bailouts. Bailouts could lead to a relaxation of
the fiscal discipline by the treasury departments involved, which would not
be subject to the pressure of a strict budget constraint (see World Bank 2000,
which describes Brazil’s approach to state debt handling and stresses the
differences in Argentina before 2001). The difficulties governments have
faced in sticking to that resolve when there have been borrowings from
the financial system must be acknowledged, however.25