IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oec/govkaa/5jrw6591hj6c.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Time to look again at accrual budgeting

Author

Listed:
  • OECD
  • Ken Warren

Abstract

A large number of countries are implementing accrual reporting to provide better accountability for the stewardship of public finances to their citizens. Far fewer nations have moved to an accrual basis for their government budgetary decisionmaking. Those few countries that have made the move do not regret doing so, having achieved significant benefits from that reform. This paper looks again at the benefits of accrual budgeting, at some of the major arguments that have impeded its international implementation, and how those issues have been addressed in the countries that have successfully adopted accrual budgeting. It suggests that the international public financial management community should revisit accrual budgeting, and that efforts to implement it should be redoubled, not because it is a panacea for all budgeting and fiscal problems, but rather because it provides a stable foundation for improving fiscal and budgetary decision-making and for providing fairer and more complete budgetary information to citizens. JEL Classification: H10, H11, H61, H83 Key words: Accrual budget, accrual report, fiscal management, fiscal performance, public finance, accountability

Suggested Citation

  • OECD & Ken Warren, 2015. "Time to look again at accrual budgeting," OECD Journal on Budgeting, OECD Publishing, vol. 14(3), pages 1-17.
    • Handle: RePEc:oec:govkaa:5jrw6591hj6c
    DOI: 10.1787/budget-14-5jrw6591hj6c
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1787/budget-14-5jrw6591hj6c
    Download Restriction: Full text available to READ online. PDF download available to OECD iLibrary subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1787/budget-14-5jrw6591hj6c?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Newberry Susan, 2014. "The Use of Accrual Accounting in New Zealand’s Central Government: Second Thoughts," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 4(3), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Grant W. Walton & Husnia Hushang, 2021. "The politics of undermining national fee‐free education policy: Insights from Papua New Guinea," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 401-419, September.
    3. Aquino, André Carlos Busanelli de & Batley, Richard A., 2022. "Pathways to hybridization: Assimilation and accommodation of public financial reforms in Brazil," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    4. Chadee, Xsitaaz T. & Clarke, Ricardo M., 2018. "Wind resources and the levelized cost of wind generated electricity in the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P2), pages 2526-2540.
    5. Megan Carroll & David Torregrosa, 2019. "A Summary of Selected CBO Reports on Cash and Accrual Budgeting: Working Paper 2019-09," Working Papers 55672, Congressional Budget Office.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    accrual budget; accrual report; fiscal management; fiscal performance; public finance; accountability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H61 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Budget; Budget Systems
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oec:govkaa:5jrw6591hj6c. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/oecddfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.