本研究的目的在探討地方政府在面對財政壓力時，所採取的因應策略及所反映的施政功能，是否和財政壓力的大小有關。首先建立地方政府的行為模式的假說，這表示地方政府會根據財政壓力的大小，而調整使用的策略，如此的地方政府便代表是以理性、負責的態度來處理財政壓力。透過問卷的調查，得到二十三個縣市的資料，經由群落分析及一因子變異數分析，來檢定財政壓力和因應策略及施政功能之間的關係是否存在，並驗證地方政府是否以理性、負責的態度來處理財政壓力。
研究發現台灣地區地方政府在面臨不同程度的財政壓力下，所採取的因應策略並無很大差異。從各地方政府在處理財政壓力時所反應的動機和目的觀之，也就是各地方政府所反映出來的施政功能，並沒有因財政壓力的不同而有差異。這顯示台灣地區地方政府的行為模式並不符合所建立的假說。換言之，地方政府傾向於未依照理性、負責及專業的態度來解決財政壓力。本研究也發現，地方政府在面臨財政壓力時，對於拓展自有財源和減少人事支出的策略並不太願意來使用；對於借貸和爭取上級補助的策略，地方政府則較願意來使用。這表示地方政府並無自我負責的態度，來解決地方財政的問題。而直轄市和省轄市所採取的因應策略，較注重透過管理制度的改進來降低支出，而縣政府則較注重直接減少支出的策略來因應財政壓力。
本研究最後建議，地方政府應該視財政壓力為一個機會來提高地方政府財務管理系統，改進財務管理的技術，並且進一步來建立一個財政壓力的預警系統，可以讓地方政府能隨時監控地方政府的財務狀況，提早作出因應的準備。

This study trys to investigate the relationship between the strategies which local government decide to take in order to solve fiscal stress and the level of fiscal stress .A behavior hypothesis of local government is proposed , which local government will choose in terms of fiscal strategies under different level of fiscal stress . If local governments’ behaviors follow this kind of behavior hypothesis , it stands for that local government have a rational and responsible attitude to deal with it fiscal stress . A questionnaire is proceeded to each municipal or county government in Taiwan. Statistical and cluster analysis method are adopted to explore the local government behavior under fiscal stress.

The study finds that there is no significant relationship between strategies and fiscal stress . It tells us that the local governments’ behaviors in Taiwan do not follow the behavior hypothesis that we established in the beginning of the study . So we cannot accept that the local governments in Taiwan do have a rational and responsible attitude to deal with fiscal stress . The study also finds that local governments in Taiwan prefer loaning and subsidy to extending own source revenue and cutting the personnel cost . This finding tells us that local governments in Taiwan tend not to have self-responsibility attitude to deal with fiscal stress . According to the result from questionnaire , municipal governments’ strategies more focus on promoting the management skill , and county governments’ stratigies more focus on immediately cutting cost to deal with fiscal stress .

The study suggests that local governments should take fiscal stress as a chance to promote financial management and establish a forecasting system of fiscal stress . With this forecasting system , local governments might hopefully handle and solve fiscal problem before it becomes worse .

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