Taking Stock: Assessing and Improving Performance Budgeting Theory and Practice

ABSTRACT

Since the passage of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993, the past 20 years represent one of the most remarkable eras for performance budgeting initiatives in the United States. As a result, many studies about this tool have been conducted and published. Based on a systematic review of articles on research related to performance budgeting in major journals in the ten years between 2002 and 2011, this study assesses how performance budgeting research has evolved over time, reviews its accomplishments, and suggests a few directions for future study, such as the need to control for different intervening factors to establish causality, the need for more coherent theoretical frameworks to guide empirical work and structure the relationship between causal factors, and the need for methodological diversity. We also present a few long-standing questions about performance budgeting that future studies may revisit carefully.

KEYWORDS::

• GPRA
• PART
• PBB
• performance budget
• performance management
• performance-based budget

Acknowledgment

The authors express their thanks for the insightful comments of the anonymous reviewers of this article. They were very helpful.

Notes

The 14 journals were Public Budgeting and Finance, Journal of Public Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Governance, Public Administration Review, Public Administration, American Review of Public Administration, Public Performance and Management Review, International Review of Administrative Science, Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Public Management Review, Administration and Society, and International Public Management Journal.

Additional information

Elaine Yi Lu is an associate professor in the Department of Public Management at John Jay College, City University of New York (CUNY). Her primary research interests are performance budgeting, performance management, and financial management.

Zachary Mohr is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. His primary research interests are cost accounting, financial management, and their intersection with public management topics like performance measurement and management.

Alfred Ho is an associate Professor in the School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Kansas. His primary research focuses on performance budgeting, citizen engagement, and e-government.