Reconsidering public budgeting after the COVID-19 outbreak: key lessons and future challenges

Eugenio Anessi-Pessina, Carmela Barbera, Cecilia Langella, Francesca Manes-Rossi, Alessandro Sancino, Mariafrancesca Sicilia and Ileana Steccolini

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, 2020, vol. 32, issue 5, 957-965

Abstract: Purpose - The paper aims to offer a viewpoint on how governmental budgeting needs to be reconsidered after the COVID-19 outbreak. Design/methodology/approach - Building on extant research, and drawing on the Italian context, the paper provides reflections on four interrelated aspects: (1) how budgeting and reporting processes and formats are being modified; (2) how budgeting may enhance governments' financial resilience; (3) how citizens are involved in the budgeting cycles and (4) how emergency responses may produce opportunities for corruption. Findings - To tackle COVID-19 related challenges, budgeting, rebudgeting, reporting processes and formats need to be reconsidered and supported by the development of new competencies. Governments will need to put stronger emphasis on the anticipatory and coping roles of budgeting to reduce public organizations' exposure to shocks and support governmental resilience. The involvement of citizens has proven critical to face the pandemic and will become increasingly relevant due to the financial impacts of COVID-19 on future public service provision. Greater attention to the risks of increased corruption is also needed. Originality/value - Drawing lessons from one of the countries most hit by COVID-19, the paper offers a viewpoint on a timely topic of international relevance by looking in an integrated way at interrelated topics such as budgeting, rebudgeting, reporting, financial resilience, coproduction and corruption.

Keywords: Coproduction; Rebudgeting; Reporting; Financial resilience; Corruption; Public budgeting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to 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:eme:jpbafm:jpbafm-07-2020-0115

DOI: 10.1108/JPBAFM-07-2020-0115

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management is currently edited by Dr Giuseppe Grossi

More articles in Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().