Public Budgeting

This book explores public budgeting in India. As government finances play an important role in the social and economic development of a nation, it focuses on public budgeting in the context of India. The respective chapters not only discuss the underlying principles of budgeting, but also address the practical issues related to the government’s financial operations and their macro-economic implications. Recently there has been considerable debate surrounding the size of government, with the neo-liberal framework advocating a very limited governmental role.

Authors: Di Francesco, Michael, Alford, John
Focuses on a "blind spot" in budgeting literature, analyzing how the rigidity of budget processes in the public sector inhibit the collaboration and agility needed in responding to complex non-routine problems
Illuminates contending understandings of the nature of budget control and offers practical recommendations to policy makers on how to reconfigure centralized budget control for greater flexibility
Offers a number of genuinely novel contributions to analyzing public management structures and practices, such as a taxonomy of budget control properties that unpacks the mechanisms inhibiting flexibility as well as an application of responsive regulatory approaches to budget control

Budgeting is probably the single most important function in government, considering the amount of money a government spends each year on various expenditure programs and activities, as well as the time it spends in preparing the budget, appropriating funds for these activities and, finally, executing them. This book integrates the complex theory and practice of public budgeting into a single text. Written in a simple, concise and easy to understand manner, The Fundamentals of Public Budgeting and Finance captures the multidimensional perspective of public budgeting that students, as well as practitioners will find useful.