Fiscal Balance Factors of the Local Government: Panel Data Evidence from OECD Countries

Abstract

Fiscal balance is perceived as a principal measure of fiscal sustainability in the local government. It also affects the budgetary response to a potential recession, determining a fiscal distress and a financial resilience. Thus, the economists conduct studies to identify factors influencing the fiscal balance at the local public level. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to examine fiscal, socio-economic, political, and institutional factors which affect the level of fiscal balance of the local government sector in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the basis of the OECD countries in the period 2007–2021. In the study both panel data models with fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE), dynamic panel data models (GMM), as well as panel quantile regressions with fixed effects were estimated. As a result, the paper confirms that fiscal balance of the local government in GDP is affected by fiscal decentralisation on the expenditure side, an investment activity, a change in the debt ratio, an inflation, a change in the unemployment rate, the Human Development Index, the trade openness, the GDP growth, and local elections. What was also found was a statistically significant influence of the corruption in the case of the panel quantile regression with fixed effects. In addition, the Mann-Whitney U test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, and the Dunn test were applied to identify whether the level of fiscal balance of the local government sector in GDP had the same distribution in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and other OECD countries.