Third- and fourth-tier Chinese cities, however, face more challenging balance-sheet adjustments, owing to falling asset prices, outflows of labor, and the need to define new growth models. In the aftermath of the post-2008 debt-fueled infrastructure-investment boom, these cities need to reform how revenue is shared with the central government, increase the transparency and accountability of local budgets, and overhaul the use of municipal-bond and public-private partnership models for local infrastructure projects.