Combining Incrementalism and Exogenous Factors in Analyzing National Budgeting : An Application to Spain

This paper focuses on the impact of both incrementalism and exogenous factors in budgeting. After a survey of related literature, we present a doubledistinction-based proposal combining incrementalism and exogenous factors to analyze national budgeting. Two of the four resulting approaches are then applied to the case of Spain. We combine several statistical tools to avoid the shortcomings of the Davis, Dempster and Wildavsky econometric method and its extensions appearing in the literature of the 70s and 80s. Results suggest that incrementalism explains changes in budgeted figures remaining within relatively narrow bands, but additional variables are needed to explain: i) the dynamics of marginal change in the budget total, and ii) the non incremental changes within the budget