Municipal Fiscal Health in Latin America by Martín Ardanaz, Andrés Muñoz and Enid Slack published by IDB (2022).
“Cities are important drivers of productivity, innovation, and economic growth. To achieve their full economic potential, they need to be able to deliver high-quality public services to their residents and businesses. Rapid urbanization in Latin American cities, combined with decentralization reforms in many countries, has meant that municipal governments are responsible for delivering an increasing number of services—“hard” services such as water, sewers, roads, and transit; and “soft” services such as cultural facilities, parks, and libraries that will attract skilled workers, and services that will meet the social needs of a rapidly growing and diverse population. Cities not only have to maintain existing services and infrastructure; they must also build new infrastructure. The extent to which they can carry out all of these responsibilities depends at least partially on the state of their fiscal health—their ability to meet their service, infrastructure, and financial obligations with the revenue available to them…”
