Represents a pioneering attempt to comprehensively explore and assess financial sustainability in Australian local government. While the emphasis falls squarely on Australian local government, Funding the Future draws on extensively on both the international conceptual and empirical literature

In the wake of the financial crisis, most developed countries have entered a period of prolonged budgetary austerity. While the success of austerity programs is still unclear, it is also an open question what success would mean for activist government in the long run. This paper rejects the...