Fiscal savings of Czech municipalities: Precaution or inaction of their administration?

Abstract

Abstract Czech municipalities keep a substantial and growing volume of bank deposits. An analysis of determinants of unreserved deposits in 2021 suggests that municipalities are precautionary and accumulate fiscal reserves if they can and do so to stabilize their budget management. Signs of low activity of municipal administration such as low creation of new assets and low execution of the approved budget were not related to the volume of unreserved deposits in 2021. The change in the impact of the municipal debt on fiscal savings from strongly negative to weakly positive between 2016 and 2021 calls for more research on the impact of the introduction of new local debt regulation.