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The main aim of this article is to explore how performance-based budgeting has an effect on primary health care service delivery in the Eastern Cape. This article assessed the performance-based budgeting system in the Eastern Cape Department of Health in an attempt to advocate for effective and efficient health service delivery. The Eastern Cape Province is succumbing to insufficient funding at the provincial level and this has a clear-cut reflection on the administration of services within respective departments. The article is premised on a constructivist paradigm that adopts a qualitative approach where document analysis was employed for collecting data. The Eastern Cape Province is succumbing to insufficient funding at the provincial level and this has a clear-cut reflection on the administration of services within respective departments. The article employed the Public Choice Theory and the Concept of New Public Management. Three main findings emerged from the article of the crippled funds in the province, the human resources crisis, poor public finance management, and shortage of health equipment. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis to examine the distinctive themes and sub-themes identified from within the reviewed literature. Recommendations were thus given based on the discussed and derived themes to ensure that there is an appropriate budgeting system to ensure efficient and effective provision of health care services in the Eastern Cape Department of Health.

Many organizations have budgets that expire at the end of the fiscal year and may face incentives to rush to spend resources on low-quality projects at year's end. We test these predictions using data on procurement spending by the US federal government. Spending in the last week of the year is 4.9 times higher than the rest-of-the-year weekly average, and year-end information technology projects have substantially lower quality ratings. We also analyze the gains from allowing agencies to roll over unused funds into the next fiscal year.

As an important major public health emergency, COVID-19 broke out more than two years. At present, China has entered the post-epidemic era. However, it is still necessary to study the medical health resource allocation in public health emergencies. Therefore, the evaluation of medical health resources allocation is important. Firstly, we use two kinds of linguistic preference orderings (LPOs) to represent experts’ opinions when evaluating the medical health resources allocation in public health emergencies. Then, a novel ORESTE method with LPOs is developed to solve multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems. Additionally, we apply the proposed ORESTE method to solve a practical MCDM problem involving the medical health resources allocation in public health emergencies. Finally, some comparative analyses among the proposed ORESTE method and some existing methods under a double hierarchy linguistic environment are set up, and some discussions are summarized to show the validity and applicability of the proposed novel ORESTE method.

We ask whether fiscal rules constrain incumbents from using fiscal policy tools for reelection purposes. Using data on fiscal rules provided by the IMF for a sample of 77 (advanced and developing) countries over the 1984–2015 period, we find that strong fiscal rules dampen political budget cycles. Our results are remarkably robust against inclusion of media freedom and the level of government debt as explanatory variables. Furthermore, we find a strong effect of fiscal rules in, amongst others, countries with fewer veto players, left-wing governments, established democracies, and more globalized economies. In addition, the effect of fiscal rules on political budget cycles seems to be stronger after the global financial crisis, reflecting post-crisis expansion in the number of countries with strong fiscal rules, notably in the European Union.

Most fiscal rules can be overridden by consensus. We show that this does not make them ineffectual. Since fiscal rules determine the outside option in case of disagreement, the opposition uses them as “bargaining chips” to obtain spending concessions. We show that under some conditions this political bargain mitigates the debt-accumulation problem. We analyse various rules and find that when political polarization is high, harsh fiscal rules (e.g. government shutdown) maximize the opposition’s bargaining power and lead to lower debt accumulation. When polarization is low, less strict fiscal limits (e.g. balanced-budget rule) are preferable. Moreover, we find that the optimal fiscal rules could arise in equilibrium by negotiation. Finally, by insuring against power fluctuations, negotiable rules yield higher welfare than hard ones.

Since the use of business analytics promises automation of business processes and time savings, the budgeting process seems predestined for the integration of analytical methods. Therefore, this study examines the determinants of the use of business analytics in the budgeting process and its effect on satisfaction with the budgeting process. Specifically, we focus on one technical determinant (data infrastructure sophistication) and the importance of the two major budgeting functions (the planning and the evaluation function), which could affect the degree of dissemination of using analytical methods. Based on a survey among German companies, we find, as predicted, that the sophistication of the data infrastructure is positively associated with the use of business analytics in the budgeting process. Further, the more a company emphasizes the planning function, the greater the extent to which business analytics is used in the budgeting process. In contrast, we find no association between the evaluation function and the use of business analytics in the budgeting process. Finally, we find that the use of business analytics is positively associated with satisfaction with the budgeting process. Thus, the use of business analytics can help to overcome dissatisfaction with traditional budgeting systems. Overall, our findings provide practitioners with valuable indications under which circumstances the use of analytical methods appears reasonable.

This paper provides an overview of the Japanese government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis in terms of the fiscal measures taken between January and June 2020. As the crisis intensified, the government passed emergency budgets with a total value exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product. One of the main programs was an unconditional cash transfer for households in the amount of 100,000 JPY (i.e., 909 USD) per resident. In addition, to prevent layoffs and bankruptcies, the government created and expanded various loan and subsidy programs to support firms and workers. Other existing social programs and local economic policies are also reviewed.

PurposeThis paper presents a review of literature, aimed at analyzing and understanding the nexus of knowledge on the topic of government budgetary responses to COVID-19 and identifying gaps for future research directions on crisis budgeting.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review approach was conducted by considering scientific journal articles written in English and published through 2020–2022. The databases used for the literature search in this paper were Scopus and Web of Science, resulting in 41 articles for final review.FindingsThis review found that in a crisis, budgetary responses were greatly determined by perceived uncertainties. In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, governments seemed to prioritize economic recovery. While many studies have documented budgetary responses to the crisis, most were written in the beginning of the crisis through documentary content analysis, leaving significant research gaps. Thus, this review offers directions for future research concerning governmental response to perceived uncertainty, logic behind governments' budgeting strategies, sustainable development principles within crisis budgeting and the prioritization of economic considerations in a health crisis.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first to present insights into the state of research regarding the topic of government budgeting during the COVID-19 crisis. In addition, it provides insights from the literature for anticipating future shocks and crises, along with directions for future researchers in developing their research agenda.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2023-0057

Originality/value: In the literature, there is an information gap on how performance accounting operates, particularly concerning cost accounting in local government units. Therefore, this article attempts to fill this gap by presenting the author's original and novel concept of performance-based cost accounting.

According to the meta-analysis on performance budgeting theory and practice, the relationship between citizens' role and performance-based budgeting is an important but under-researched topic. Missing in our understanding of the determinants of performance budgeting is an examination of how citizen participation fosters the usage of performance information in the local budgetary process. This research is intended to understand the role of citizens to use performance budgeting, particularly for strategic planning and performance evaluation. To examine the research question, this study hypothesizes that local governments with a commitment to citizen participation tend to use performance budgeting. The results allow confirming that the hypothesis is supported, and to clarify our knowledge of the role of citizen input in government fiscal decisions.