Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

The Global Financial Crisis And Local Government, Robert Andrew Nickson

Robert Andrew Nickson

This short paper examines the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) on local government. It first proposes a framework to explore the possible transmission mechanisms through which the GFC impacts on local government income and expenditure, and then assesses the strength of these effects. The second section addresses the wider question of the potential impact of the GFC on decentralisation, which has been a notable feature of the development strategy of many Commonwealth countries in recent decades. The final section suggests that the GFC provides an opportunity for addressing three longstanding structural concerns affecting local government.