Performance budgeting (PB) emerged more than 60 years ago as a key driver of budgetary innovation in the United States. Due to its often lofty goals, PB initiatives were rarely successful, but have instead reappeared, in different forms and with new labels. This article focuses on contemporary...

Performance budgeting and accrual budgeting are analytic tools that provide information and insights which are not available through conventional approaches. But neither innovation is ready for widespread application as a decision rule in the budget process. This article urges fuller...

Budgeting is a rule-driven process that regulates the raising and spending of public money. Detailed rules govern the submission of bids for resources by spending units, review of these bids by the Finance Ministry or another central organ, compilation of the annual budget, legislative action...

The contemporary nation-state exists to perform – to provide financial assistance, public services and other benefits to its people. How well the government performs influences the economic and social well-being of citizens, the mindset that voters take into the election booth, the programmes...

Budgeting is a work in progress. The process is never quite settled because those who manage it are never fully satisfied. To budget is to decide on the basis of inadequate information, often without secure knowledge of how past appropriations were used or of what was accomplished, or of the...

Budgeting is fundamentally altered, if only temporarily, by pressures that overwhelm established policies and practices. This article discusses conventional and non-conventional responses to crisis, and how crisis impacts on the budget process. Just as crisis has mobilised governments to take...

The network of senior budget officials (SBO) was launched in 1980 as an ad hoc response to the budget stress that beset most developed countries in the aftermath of oil price shocks, high inflation, and economic stagnation.

This article discusses the economic crisis that has ravaged the budgets of many developed countries, and whether conditions have sufficiently stabilised to permit governments to introduce next-generation fiscal rules. The article examines a series of issues that may arise as governments...

Every successful public management reform is an amalgam of opportunity, strategy and tactics. Opportunities are country-specific conditions that facilitate some reforms and retard others; strategies are policies and actions that set goals for government and for the tasks to be undertaken in...

This paper, originally presented at the 1981 meeting of the OECD Working Party of Senior Budget Officials, discusses the fundamental purposes of budgeting and explores how off-budget expenditures weaken a government’s financial control. The paper gives insights on many aspects of budgeting...