Essays on municipal finance in Ontario from a historical perspective
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2010
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Abstract
The economic history of municipal finance in Ontario has been neglected. This dissertation consists of three essays that together address the development of the municipal fisc and assess the impact of the Great Depression on municipal finance in Ontario and the fiscal response of municipalities to the crisis. The crisis was a "defining moment" fiscally for municipalities in Ontario and in intergovernmental fiscal relations between the Province and municipalities. The first essay describes the development of the Ontario municipal fiscal system as a whole to 1941. The second essay focuses on the process of transition from a relatively soft budget constraint facing municipalities prior to the Great Depression to a relatively hard hierarchical constraint imposed by the Province as a crisis response. Hard hierarchical constraints have subsequently been reinforced by market forces and continue to persist. The third essay assesses the evidence that municipal spending and taxing decisions were adversely affected by pressure to finance education and both mandatory and discretionary municipal services in the context of a shared and weakened property tax base. Together, the three show the development of municipal fiscal capacity to meet the demands of an increasingly urbanized population and assess the "squeeze" on this capacity that arose from the general economic conditions of the Great Depression, affecting a narrow tax base combined with the mandatory financing of public education and poor relief. The essays also show that a lasting legacy of institutional development was also created.
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Bibliography: p. 316-336
A few pages are in colour.
A few pages are in colour.
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Tassonyi, A. T. (2010). Essays on municipal finance in Ontario from a historical perspective (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/3873