Does budgeting have a future?

Allen Schick

OECD Journal on Budgeting, 2003, vol. 2, issue 2, 7-48

Abstract: 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 results that new allocations may produce. Most people involved in budgeting have experienced the frustration of having their preferences crowded out by the built-in cost of past actions. Budgeting is a deadline-driven process, in which sub-optimal decisions often are the norm because government does not have the option of making no decisions. When one cycle ends, the next begins, usually with little respite and along the same path that was trod the year before. The routines of budgeting dull conflict, but they also are a breeding ground for frustration.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/budget-v2-art8-en (text/html)
Full text available to READ online. PDF download available to OECD iLibrary subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:govkaa:5lmqcr2k24xn

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in OECD Journal on Budgeting from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().