Municipal Capital Spending during the “Boom”

Abstract

This article analyzes municipal governments, capital spending, and revenue‐raising decisions between 1993 and 2000, an era of unprecedented economic growth. It finds that, as anticipated, greater‐than‐expected revenues allowed many cities to advance projects from their capital improvement plans to their capital budgets. Moreover, the article concludes that growth in cities' own‐source‐revenue‐generating capacity and transfers from carryover or ending balances from earlier years, rather than debt issuances and intergovernmental aid, seem to be the most important fuel for the remarkable growth rate in capital spending.