A Guide to State Debt Affordability Studies: Common Elements and Best Practices A Guide to State Debt Affordability Studies: Common Elements and Best Practices

By Jennifer Weiner

Policymakers must carefully balance a state's capital needs with efforts to keep debt levels affordable. To help weigh these competing concerns, a number of states routinely prepare formal debt affordability studies. By exploring the purpose of such studies, their common elements, and best practices, this policy brief aims to provide guidance to states that are developing or re-examining their own debt affordability analyses.

This policy brief builds upon the Center's 2013 research report "Assessing the Affordability of State Debt." This report highlights various issues that must be considered by policymakers when gauging a state's debt burden and recommends the use of multiple metrics to assess affordability.

To review other Center research, please visit our research index.

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