Background: China has five layers of government including the central government. Recently, some prefectural governments meet fiscal distress. Methods: We investigate the effects of urban and rural populations and area sizes on the expenditures of the prefecture-level local government by...

German municipalities are expected to suffer from (often significant) population losses in the upcoming decades. We assess these local governments' vulnerability to the fiscal consequences of this demographic decline through two means (using a sample of 1021 municipalities in the state of...