The United States (U.S.) has been described as the root of the global financial crisis. The events of the financial, sovereign debt, and Euro crisis and the accompanying economic turmoil that have spread throughout most of the Western world have been traced back to the excessive consumer...

In this chapter, the development of financial sustainability and resilience in Swedish local governments is analysed. We analyse four Swedish municipalities, where we have interviewed top managers and co-workers. As a complement, we have examined the municipalities’ strategic plans, budget...

Since 2010, Dutch local authorities (LGs) have been coping with fiscal stress and austerity. Restoring fiscal balance is difficult for Dutch LGs as they have very limited abilities to increase the level of local income. Fundamental choices regarding policy priorities and public services are...

The 2008 economic and financial crisis has particularly hit Italy, forcing governments to cope with unprecedented shocks affecting their financial conditions. Drawing on the resilience concept, the chapter aims to investigate what capacities are deployed and developed by Italian local...

The crisis exposed Greek municipalities to bilateral financial pressures from cutbacks and increased needs for social assistance. They were directly affected by cheese-slice austerity measures that were implemented in the whole public sector (hiring freeze, cutbacks of salaries, dismissal of...

This chapter investigates financial resilience of German local governments. The local governments included in this analysis challenged the applicability of the financial resilience concept by reporting no significant direct impact of the financial crisis during the last 10 years. This is also in...

French municipalities are in charge of a large number of local public services and benefit from a good, even if decreasing, financial autonomy. They have been until recently and despite the 2008 crisis, in a good financial situation supported by stable tax revenues and protective national...

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, English local government faced a period of significant budget reduction and uncertainty. Austerity measures were effectively rolled out over several budget iterations, resulting in a 37% real-term reduction in core central government funding, equivalent...