Better Performance with Performance Budgeting? Analyzing Cases of Success and Failure in Public Administrations

ABSTRACT

The introduction of performance budgeting has substantially changed the working environment of public managers. Changes include a shift from input to outcome orientation as well as more freedom to manage. However, current public management theories are unable to explain why performance budgeting sometimes fails. This article proposes a causal model that integrates three contextual factors and two individual factors in order to explain the diverse results. The model is tested with cases generated from interviews with Swiss public managers. The compiled data suggests that the type of tasks in a department as an antecedent variable and the perceived freedom of public managers have a dominating influence on the perceived reform outcome. Other factors, such as the behavior of the legislature, the project management and the prior career of managers, tend to be less important. These results contribute to the scientific discourse about success factors for performance budgeting in public administrations.     

Taxes,Budgetary Rule and Majority Voting

This paper studies majority voting outcomes fora specific class of two-dimensional policies. One policyinstrument influences efficiency and the other redistribution.Absent the political process, the two dimensions can beaddressed separately. With a two dimensional vote, the twoaspects will interact in a non-trivial way. The illustrativepolicy we consider, requires taxing an externality-generatinggood and determining a budgetary rule which specifies theproportions of the tax proceeds that go to wage earners and tocapital owners. We show: First, a sequential vote wherein thetax rate is determined first and the budgetary rule second,always possesses an equilibrium and that this equilibrium isthe median-endowed individual's most-preferred policy. Second,the reverse sequential choice implies that the median-endowedindividual may, but need not, be decisive. Third, the``Shepsle procedure'' also implies that the equilibrium is thepolicy most favored by the median individual. Fourth, thisequilibrium constitutes, under certain circumstances, theCondorcet winner for the unrestricted simultaneous votinggame.