Budget reform in the 1980s: The compatibility of design and practice

This paper explores changes and adaptations in budgeting practice that have occurred in the 1980s as a result of budgeting reforms instituted in many governments throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The paper’s observations and arguments are based on a conceptual framework that distinguishes between micro-level and macro-level budgeting phenomena. Micro-level phenomena includes individual decision making behavior and conditions affecting budgeting decisions. Macro-level phenomena refers to more collective, organizational group behavior and conditions affecting events at this level. The paper argues that adaptations in budgeting practice occur at each level and are the result of imposed reforms that are incompatible with actual conditions and behavior.