Business Cycles and Municipal Expenditures

Abstract

IT is an accepted fact that business cycles exercise a profound influence upon the finances of American cities. The purpose of this study is to compare the cyclical fluctuations of business and of municipal expenditures and thus to throw some additional light on the cycles in American business during the last century. Expenditure data extending over a long period, roughly one hundred years, exist for three cities. These cities are Boston, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and Rochester, New York. For other cities, expenditure figures are fragmentary or in a form not suitable for analysis. The data for the three cities mentioned were carefully collected by writers of their financial histories, were supplemented for this century from the Census Bureau's Financial Statistics of Cities,and are probably as accurate as such figures can be made.' They include all items which go to make up the category government cost payments; namely, maintenance, interest, and outlays. It was impossible to eliminate capital outlays, and their presence doubtless clouds the picture somewhat. All expenditures were placed upon a per capita basis to take account of the influences of changes in population either through natural growth or the annexation of new territory. In the absence of complete knowledge as to the dates of fiscal years, it has been assumed that all figures are for calendar years. The faultiness of municipal accounting must also be recognized as rendering the data inherently inaccurate. Such errors are probably small compared to the size and changes in the annual items dealt with, and are not serious for the purposes of this discussion.