Abstract
One approach to municipal fiscal stain may focus on the municipal bond market. It may then be registered as a drop in: 1. the offering price of a new issue, 2. the price in the secondary bond market, both of which are presumably related to, 3. the probability of the issue meeting regular payments of principal and interest. Another approach may be that a municipality is strained if its population or economic base declines. Third, "early warning" signals should be established to help municipal leaders and others formulate policies to deal with their problems. There is seldom any effort to show how the various indicators of municipal fiscal strain are interrelated. Cities have no incentive to show a profit, and they differ in specific accounting practices as well as the amount of detail disclosed. The study presented is an exploratory attempt to determine causes of fiscal strain across cities, but more data is needed that is comparable across cities. Appendixes.