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ABSTRACT
The cases are the two separate jurisdictions of the City of San Bernardino and the County of San Bernardino, California, U.S.A. The matched pair offers a unique opportunity for a research design that compares a bankrupt city government with a jurisdiction sharing the essential demographic, economic, and geographical features, though as a county a different level of government. The two cases offer insights into bankruptcy as not simply a function of economic forces or recent poor policy choices but as a result of a pattern of decision-making, a structure of government, and the constraints placed on leadership by structure and electoral politics. The analysis of this comparison allows us to unbundle leadership and show that differences in strategy, transparency, civic culture, trust and accountability explain the divergent outcomes.
1. INTRODUCTION
Not all state actors are created equal. A set of challenges exists in explaining the actions of public sector leaders who while being confronted with similar circumstances choose different paths and different strategies. A problem that needs to be addressed in public finance research is how to explain the divergent outcomes of similarly situated jurisdiction. The two contemporary case studies in this paper provide a unique opportunity to compare two similar situated circumstances, with two different set of state actors.
The cases are the two separate jurisdictions of the City of San Bernardino and the County of San Bernardino. These jurisdictions were at the epicenter of the collapse of the housing market in 2008. The San Bernardino region east of the Los Angeles region experienced one of the sharpest downturns in housing and employment in the United States. The City Council of San Bernardino approved filing for bankruptcy in July 2012. The County of San Bernardino Board of Supervisors approved a balanced budget in June 2012. The City is nested within the County. Both share not only geography, but also the devastating impact of the economic downturn in housing, employment, and tax revenues. Each of these jurisdictions suffered the housing market collapse in the immediate time frame, and both had experienced the exodus of industrial employment over the past two decades. These cases address the need for research that deepen the understanding of the social interactions in public finance (Slusher, 2011, 177)....