The Impact of Maximum Allowable Debt Level of Local Government Units on their Investment Potential

Abstract

Keeping local government units’ financial stability to run necessary projects is becoming a severe threat due to the remarkable increase of theirs’ debt level. A question arises whether the application of debt limits excessively restrict municipalities’ investment potential. Using the linear regression model, we proved that increasing the maximum allowable debt level decreases investment potential. We have challenged the relevance of using fiscal rules and presented liberalizing the fiscal rules’ principles to assess the investment potential as an indicator to guarantee optimum use of the local government units’ economic potential from different perspectives.