Evaluation of the effects of economic crises on the finance of local governments within the scope of decentralization principle (Examples of countries and Turkey review)

The principle of decentralization is a public administration principle that aims to meet public services by the closest management unit. The most important type of management that plays a role in the implementation of this principle is local governments. It is known that local governments have an important role in increasing social welfare. Local governments are structures that have emerged as a result of different reasons and are still active today. The purpose of this study is to analyze what change the local administrations' finances were during the economic crisis. Because economic crises are a phenomenon that damages the financial structures of countries at macro level. The reflection of the negative financial effects of this phenomenon at the macro level on the local administrations was subjected to an evaluation over the variables in the local government finances. In the study, first of all, the transformation of macro variables in USA, Germany, Canada, Italy, France, Spain, Greece's 2008 Economic Crisis and then the reflections of this transformation in the local government finances of these countries are examined. Both the federal, the nation-state and the two countries selected from the management approaches in which the two are applied in different intensities have been seen in the examples of the financial conditions of their local governments, just like the central governments. Although countries restrict their local government expenditures, they faced an increased debt burden due to the decrease in revenues. In addition, changes have been observed in transfers that have been transferred to the local administrations by different management channels through different channels. How the economic crisis has affected the local governments' finance has been examined in another section through a Turkish sample. It is known that in recent years Turkey has encountered the phenomenon of economic crisis, which may occur for different reasons, more than once and that it has caused negative effects on macroeconomics which are difficult to compensate. In terms of data availability, three examples of economic crises were taken. These crises are the 1994, 2001, 2008 Economic Crises. How and to what extent the mentioned three economic crises have affected the local governments has been analyzed. The data obtained reveals that local governments' financal situation in Turkey went through a similar deteriotion as other countries' local governments had faced throughout the global crisis and that negative changes were observed in budget balances.