Top-Down Budgeting - An Instrument to Strengthen Budget Management
Abstract
This paper examines the rationale for a top-down approach to budget preparation and approval, and discusses some factors that have to be considered when reorienting the budget process along these lines. The paper argues that the sequence in which budgetary decisions are taken matters, and that a strong top-down approach strengthens fiscal discipline and improves policy prioritization and coordination. Top-down budgeting also alters the division of roles and responsibilities between the central budget authority and line ministries, and requires that the process of determining the total expenditure level, sectoral allocations and individual appropriations is clarified. Finally, the paper argues that strong top-down elements in the parliamentary budget voting process can be effective in addressing the risk of excessive and unsustainable amendments during budget approval.Download Info
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Paper provided by International Monetary Fund in its series IMF Working Papers with number 09/243.Length: 235
Date of creation: 01 Nov 2009
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Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:09/243
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Related research
Keywords: Fiscal sustainability; Budgetary policy; Budgets; Governance; Government expenditures;This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-11-27 (All new papers)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Victor Duarte Lledo & Marcos Poplawski-Ribeiro, 2011. "Fiscal Policy Implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Working Papers 11/172, International Monetary Fund.
- Sophia Gollwitzer & Eteri Kvintradze & Tej Prakash & Luis-Felipe Zanna & Era Dabla-Norris & Richard Allen & Irene Yackovlev & Victor Duarte Lledo, 2010. "Budget Institutions and Fiscal Performance in Low-Income Countries," IMF Working Papers 10/80, International Monetary Fund.
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