Urban Public Economics Review ISSN: 1697-6223
[email protected] Universidade de Santiago de Compostela España Bandyopadhyay, Simanti A Framework for Assessing the Fiscal Health of Cities: Some Evidence from India Urban Public Economics Review, núm. 19, julio-diciembre, 2013, pp. 12-43 Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela, España Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=50430343002 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative A Framework for Assessing the Fiscal Health of Cities: Some Evidence from India Simanti Bandyopadhyay* The paper considers big urban agglomerations and smaller cities in India to propose a two stage methodology which explains the variations in fiscal health across cities. In the first stage the expenditure need and revenue capacities are estimated. In the second stage an econometric analysis is attempted to identify the determinants of fiscal health. The nature of relationship between the determinants and the fiscal health indicator is defined by the relative strength of the ‘revenue 12 13 effect’ and the ‘expenditure effect’. We find that the role of the higher tiers of the government is important in bigger and smaller cities in their financial management. For bigger cities, own revenues can also play an important role in improving fiscal health. In smaller cities the role of the demand indicators is not that prominent but the cost indicators are found to be more effective while in case of bigger agglomerations, the demand indicators can play a role.