Budgetary Responses to the Fiscal Crisis: Changes in Budgeting Practices and Institutions

Abstract

This panel focuses on the changes in budgeting practices and institutions that have taken place in response to the fiscal crisis in 2009-2012. The main aim of the panel is to examine whether the increasing scarcity of budgetary resources and the need to adopt austerity measures have led to shifts in budget procedures of central governments (i.e. in the ways which the public budgets are prepared, adopted and implemented). In light of the existing literature on fiscal governance and budgeting, it can be expected that in response to fiscal stress the following shifts have taken place in fiscal governance and budgetary institutions: increased power of the executive branch vis-à-vis the legislative branch in budgetary decision-making, movement from decentralised and bottom-up modes of budget preparation to centralised and top-down modes, increased power of the finance ministry vis-à-vis line ministries in budgetary decision-making, adoption of numerical fiscal rules, and the revival of the “more rational” budgetary decision-making techniques (e.g., performance-based budgeting, results-based budgeting, etc.). The papers in this panel would be invited to examine the changes that have taken place in the fiscal governance and budget processes in different countries and to explore to what extent these predictions have been borne out in reality.

Title	Details
Trust and Currency: The Functional Preconditions and Problems of the Euro	View Paper Details
The Use of Performance Information in Cutback Budgeting: The Case of Estonia	View Paper Details