Search Results for: Municipal Revenues

Platform economy firms such as Uber and Airbnb have attracted attention in cities around the world, given the impact of these firms on the existing taxi industry or the rental market, but little has been written about the effects of the platform economy on municipal fiscal health. This paper estimates the regulatory cost and potential revenue opportunities of the platform economy, examining the impact of three firms in Toronto: Uber, Airbnb, and Rover.
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Fracking has revolutionized international oil and gas markets practically overnight, but its impact on local public finance and governance have largely been overlooked. While operating under federal and state constraints, the key ongoing policy question is whether and to what extent local governments can – and should – have the power to manage the industry’s effects on their communities.
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Enid Slack, IMFG Director, presented, “Smart Villages- Financing Services and Infrastructure” as part of The Fields Institute Conference on Smart Villages on April 4, 2018.
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This paper explores climate finance, the provision of financing by private actors for projects intended to decrease carbon emissions or make cities more resilient to the impacts of climate change. It analyzes four climate financing tools used in other jurisdictions – green bonds, environmental impact bonds, catastrophe bonds, and green banks – and their feasibility under current Ontario regulations.
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Aversion to taxes presents a major policy dilemma for elected governments: voters want governments to deliver goods and services but are deeply suspicious of their efforts to raise taxes.
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Throughout much of the 20th century, water was seen as plentiful and water rates did not promote conservation. Today, water is treated as a relatively scarce resource and governments are concerned about financing new and rehabilitated infrastructure. However, most municipalities still do not set prices for water at levels that would encourage conservation, thereby allowing the overconsumption of water, and leading to increased demand for expensive infrastructure.
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The “golden rule” of public finance states that over an economic cycle, governments should borrow only to invest and not to fund current spending, and that the current budget must always balance or be brought into surplus. In Ontario, all municipalities are subject to legal borrowing limits, with special exceptions for Toronto and York Region.
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IMFG is pleased to announce the release of a new paper, excerpted from the new book Financing Infrastructure: Who Should Pay? The poor state of municipal infrastructure is the subject of frequent complaint in Canada. Roads are congested, transit systems are in need of major investments, bridges are crumbling, and water treatment plants need to be replaced. Municipalities continue to seek financial assistance from the federal and provincial governments, but are transfers really the best way to pay for municipal capital investments?
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