**5. Conclusions**

Financial autonomy of local governmen<sup>t</sup> units is the term employed when referring to the complex, multidimensional economic phenomenon based on the economic, fiscal policy, fiscal decentralisation, and regional development theories. It is related to responsible and sustainable financial resource allocation, redistribution, and stabilisation. Hence, assessment of the phenomenon involves complex aspects that cannot be measured directly. In view of the above, the multi-criteria TOPSIS method was selected and enabled the authors to assess the financial autonomy of rural municipalities by presenting a single summarizing indicator and to determine the respective levels of financial autonomy. The complex, integrated assessment model applied to assessment of financial autonomy of rural municipalities of the two regions was designed during the empirical study.

The conducted empirical study and data analysis have not provided compregensive exploration of financial autonomy of rural municipalities from the perspective of socioeconomic development. Nevertheless, they established the basis for further analysis of the scope, factors, and conditions of the phenomenon. For deeper and more comprehensive assessment and comparison, it is necessary to not only assess the level of financial autonomy of all the remaining rural municipalities of Lithuania, but also to analyse their socioeconomic factors and effect on the regional development. Hence, the empirical study should be resumed by extending the methodology with the view towards determination of the socioeconomic factors and effect thereof on development of the municipalities and financial sustainability (stage 3 of the empirical study).

The novelty of the research findings is demonstrated by the designed multi-criteria assessment model for assessment of financial autonomy of the rural municipalities using a single indicator. The study is also significant in that the assessment of the financial autonomy was performed for the rural municipalities as the local governmen<sup>t</sup> units, as it was not subject to an integrated analysis on the national level. The model is relevant in addressing of the scientific and practical goals. It also enables the practitioners and theorists to assess and rationalize the financial autonomy of LGUs by gaining a better understanding of the whole, providing reasonable suggestions on increasing of the financial autonomy of LGUs. The presented model is also relevant for modeling of the scenario of the links between financial autonomy and the impact of socioeconomic factors on the development of municipalities and financial sustainability development indicators.

The results of the empirical study have revealed that the analyzed municipalities of the selected regions were characterised by the medium low level of financial autonomy. The finding has shown that the municipalities were very homogeneous, and their financial state and possibilities to implement own tasks still depended on the national budget allocations.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, A.M. and L.S.; methodology, L.S.; software, R.K.; validation, A.M., L.S. and R.K.; formal analysis, R.K.; investigation, L.S.; resources, L.S.; data curation, L.S.; writing—original draft preparation, A.M.; writing—review and editing, L.S.; visualization, L.S.; supervision, A.M.; project administration, A.M.; funding acquisition, A.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Data Availability Statement:** No new data were created or analised in this study.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
