'Ein Fass ohne Boden? Vier Jahrzehnte kommunaler Schuldenhilfen in Deutschland'

The journal article „Ein Fass ohne Boden? Vier Jahrzehnte kommunaler Schuldenhilfen in Deutschland“ by Dr. Christian Person and René Geißler has been published in the current volume of dms – der moderne Staat (issue 1/2020).

The paper describes the evolution of municipal bailouts in Germany since the 1980s and provides explanations on differences regarding their design, time of implementation and impacts. Different programme designs and time of implementation can be explained mainly by differing socioeconomic problem pressure, political guiding principles and fiscal capacities of state governments. Concerning their impacts, one can observe improvements with regard to budget consolidation and debt reduction. However, these improvements go hand in hand with shrinking capital expenditure, higher taxation and massive interference with local self-government.