pemLocal Governments' Financial Vulnerabilityem presents a conceptual framework developed to examine how vulnerable local finances were before and in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by mapping and systematising its dimensions and sources.p pThe model is then applied to eight countries with different administrative models and traditions Australia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. Comparative results reveal not only that COVID-19 impacts and policy tools had a lot of similarities across countries, but also that financial vulnerability has an inherently contingent nature in time and space and can lead to paradoxical outcomes. The book shows that the impact of the crisis on local governments' finances has been postponed and that financial vulnerability is expected to increase dramatically for a few years following the pandemic, especially in larger and richer municipalities which are traditionally more autonomo