Institutional and Strategic Foundations for Implementing Municipal Debt Policy in the Public Governance System

The article provides an in-depth study of the institutional and legal aspects of municipal debt management in the Russian Federation from the perspective of new institutional economics. Municipal borrowings is examined as an instrument of strategic financial planning embedded in local budgetary and investment policy. Based on doctrinal and empirical analysis, the study identifies regulatory conflicts and institutional gaps that hinder the formation of an effective debt management model. It assesses the role of financial authorities, which hold key powers in the budgetary sphere but lack a clearly defined status under federal legislation to carry out borrowing activities. By adapting core tenets of transaction cost theory, agency theory, and property rights theory to the analysis of problematic areas in municipal borrowing regulation, the study reveals its economic-legal risks and institutional impediments. It argues that the current legal framework does not ensure alignment between the functions of participants in the debt process and their legal status. The following reform directions are proposed: statutory consolidation of the competencies of financial authorities, development of standard interaction procedures, institutionalization of monitoring and transparency mechanisms, and the cultivation of a culture of fiscal responsibility. The necessity of creating a coherent institutional environment is substantiated as a prerequisite for the sustainable development of municipal finance.