Theoretical Foundations and Conceptual Evolution in Local Government Financing Research (1990–2025): A Global Bibliometric Mapping and Framework Synthesis
Abstract
This study uses bibliometric scientific mapping and content analysis to synthesize research on local government finance. A Scopus of 629 English-language journal articles and reviews (1990–2025) in business, management, and accounting was analyzed using fractional counting and association-strength normalization across author-keyword co-occurrence, cited-reference co-citation, temporal overlay, and country collaboration without a term-harmonization thesaurus. Using a theory-instrument matrix, we conducted supplementary content analysis to connect conceptual frameworks to financial instruments. Public economics and fiscal federalism shape taxation, intergovernmental transfers, and soft budget constraints, whereas infrastructure governance addresses contract design, risk allocation, and oversight in public–private partnerships. Current research focuses on public-private partnership governance and performance, environmental and regulatory interfaces with municipal finance (carbon finance, solid waste services, and sustainability policies), and identification-driven analyses of decentralization and revenue autonomy. Geographically diverse collaborations and publications in public finance, administration, urban, and sustainability journals demonstrate the field’s interdisciplinary nature. Fiscal federalism is most aligned with taxation and transfers, while institutional and governance perspectives, public financial management, agency theory, and transaction cost economics focus on public–private partnerships and borrowing. Municipal bond and green/innovative instrument theories exist. A context-attentive municipal debt market, conceptual consolidation, improved causal designs using administrative and market data, and climate-aligned finance theory are the focus of this repeatable map and synthesis agenda.
Keywords
References
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.17509/jbme.v10i3.91381
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