Journal of Public Budgeting Accounting & Financial Management

Wang, XiaoHu; Liou, Kuotsai Tom

doi: 10.1108/JPBAFM-21-02-2009-B001pmid: N/A

This study assesses the change in states’ financial condition by examining their financial data in fiscal years (FY) 2003 and 2004. It explores and explains how much the change was, how it occurred, and whether and how closely the change might respond to states’ socioeconomic development. The study finds that states’ financial condition varied significantly from FY 2003 to FY 2004. Changes in different aspects of financial condition are interrelated, although these changes may not occur simultaneously at the same pace. The change in financial condition may result from the multi-year cumulative socioeconomic development in personal income and employment, but not in population. The impact of personal income and employment on financial condition of a government is likely long term; it may take 3-4 years for the growth in personal income and employment to benefit a government’s financial condition. The results also suggest that the cumulative improvement of personal income and employment for consecutive years prior to a fiscal year is more likely to improve the financial condition of that year than a personal income or employment increase that follows an up-and-down pattern of growth. These findings can be used to develop effective strategies to improve financial conditions in government.

Ozurumba, Chimezie; Kim, Younhee

doi: 10.1108/JPBAFM-21-02-2009-B002pmid: N/A

In the past two decades, corporate casino gambling has expanded from being legal in only two U.S. states (Nevada and New Jersey) in the late 1980s to 12 states in 2007. As a result, the annual gambling revenue realized by the casino industry has grown from $9 billion in 1991 to more than $34 billion in 2007. The growth of gambling revenue as a source of additional state tax revenue, however, has not been matched by a corresponding increase of academic research on casino gambling. The research addresses the question of whether states are maximizing collected corporate casino tax revenue and finds that states fall into one of four clusters: undertaxing; overtaxing; undertaxing but close to the revenuemaximization tax level; and overtaxing but close to the revenue-maximization tax level.

Frank, Howard A.; Christian, Philip C.; Scutelnicu, Gina

doi: 10.1108/JPBAFM-21-02-2009-B003pmid: N/A

This article analyzes the content of 584 articles published in the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting, and Financial Management and Public Budgeting and Finance with principal focus on how the public financial management knowledge base is generated. We find remarkable diversity of authorship and academic domicile. However, we note an absence of simulations and experiments and that much of the survey research does not comport with "best" practice. Practitioners were five times more likely to contribute than graduate students, and content continues a disciplinary tendency to neglect linkages between the macro-economy and public financial management. Our findings may reflect a public administration research ethos detailed by Frank Thompson and colleagues (1998) that is negatively impacted by lack of extramural funding.

Callahan, Kathe; Yang, Kaifeng

doi: 10.1108/JPBAFM-21-02-2009-B004pmid: N/A

Justice, Jonathan B.; Dülger, Cumhur

doi: 10.1108/JPBAFM-21-02-2009-B005pmid: N/A

Much of the current U.S. academic literature on participatory budgeting is preoccupied with direct citizen involvement in budget formulation, reflecting a particular normative theory of democracy. In this essay we suggest that U.S. academics can learn from a contemporary international community of practice concerned with “civil-society budget work”-a quasi-grassroots, quasi-pluralist movement with member organizations throughout the developing world-as well as from the budget exhibits mounted by the New York Bureau of Municipal Research at the turn of the last century. The budget-work movement employs third-party intermediation and advocacy, through all phases of the budget cycle. U.S. academics and budget-work practitioners can learn from each other, and this represents an unexploited opportunity for all concerned. We propose a program of locally based action research and trans-local evaluative synthesis.

Zhang, Yahong; Yang, Kaifeng

doi: 10.1108/JPBAFM-21-02-2009-B006pmid: N/A

Much of the literature on citizen participation in the budget process links the council-manager form of government with higher levels of citizen participation, assuming the council-manager form represents professional administration. This is contradictory to the reality that different forms of government have “borrowed” features from each other and many now have mixed forms of government (i.e., adapted). The literature also contains ambiguities about city managers’ role in participatory budgeting. We review the literature and identify three competing theories about the role of professional managers in the budget process. We directly examine the effect of city managers in terms of their professional dimensions, institutional environment, and individual willingness to represent citizens. Using survey data from Florida, we demonstrate that managers’ professionalism, perceived political environment, and attitude toward citizen input are important factors explaining local governments’ adoption of participatory budgeting.