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Introduction to Jesse Burkhead Symposium
Author(s) -
Jump Bernard
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
public budgeting and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.694
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1540-5850
pISSN - 0275-1100
DOI - 10.1111/1540-5850.01065
Subject(s) - government (linguistics) , politics , process (computing) , public relations , public service , public administration , service (business) , public sector , scarcity , business , political science , economics , marketing , law , philosophy , linguistics , computer science , microeconomics , operating system
Government budgeting is one of the major processes by which the use of public resources is planned and controlled. To the extent that this is done well, governmental programs are brought increasingly to the service of its citizens, enhancing their material and cultural status. The study of government budgeting is a study in applied economics—in the allocation of scarce resources. This study must look at operations and begin with organization and procedure, the routines which have been established for decision–making in government. It should extend to an examination of the influences, governmental and nongovernmental, that come to bear on the decision‐making process. Ours is both an organized society and a society of organizations. The significance of organization is nowhere more evident than in the public sector. Here organizational arrangements bring together the learning of all social scientists. The patterns for decision‐making do not provide separate compartments for economic knowledge, for political knowledge, for social knowledge. These are merged in the organizational arrangements which have been established for the conduct of governmental affairs.1