PFM Bibliography

[Napodano]

This is an interesting bibliography on Public Expenditure Management,  which I obtained from a recent work by Marc Robinson, a distinguished PFM expert and member of the Board.

I also attach a seminal work by Professor A. Schick 'A Contemporary Approach to Public Expenditure Management' dated 1998.

Finally two links: (i) to the OECD Journal on Budgeting http://www.oecd.org/document/14/0,3746,en_2649_34119_2074062_1_1_1_1,00.html and (ii) the IMF Finance & Development magazine http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/03/index.htm 

Bibliography:
Blondal, J and M Ruffner (2004), “Budgeting in Denmark”, OECD Journal on Budgeting, 4(1), 49-79, Paris: OECD.
De Renzio, P and S Smith (2005), Linking Policies and Budgets: Implementing Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks in a PRSP Context, ODI Briefing Paper; London: Overseas Development Institute.
European Commission, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (2006), “Public Finances in the EMU”, European Economy (3), Brussels: EC.
European Commission, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (2009), “Public Finances in the EMU”, European Economy (5), Brussels: EC.
European Commission (2010), Economic governance package (1): Strengthening the Stability and Growth Pact, Brussels: EC.
Fölscher, A (2007), “Overview”, in CABRI, Are We Asking the Right Questions? Embedding a Medium-Term Perspective in Budgeting, 4th Annual CABRI Seminar, 13–15 December 2007, Pretoria: CABRI Secretariat.
Good, D (2007), Politics of Public Money: Spenders, Guardians, Priority Setters, and Financial Watchdogs inside the Canadian Government, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Gustafsson, A (2004), “MTEF in Sweden”, in World Bank/Korea Development Institute, Reforming the Public Expenditure Management System: Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, Performance Management, and Fiscal Transparency, Conference proceedings, [no publication details].
Holmes, M and A Evans (2003), A Review of Experience in Implementing Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks in a PRSP Context: A Synthesis of Eight Country Studies, London: Overseas Development Institute.
IMF (2008), Kyrgyz Republic: Report on Observance of Standards and Codes—Fiscal Transparency Module, Washington, D.C.: IMF.
IMF (2009), Fiscal Rules—Anchoring Expectations for Sustainable Public Finances, Washington, D.C.: IMF.
Kim, J M and C-K Park (2006), “Top-down Budgeting as a Tool for Central Resource Management”, OECD Journal on Budgeting, 6(1), 87-127.
Shambetova, E, C Vanderweele and S Bruni (2009), Kyrgyz Republic: Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Assessment 2009, [no publication details]>
Kopits, G and S Symansky (1998), “Fiscal Policy Rules”, IMF Occasional Paper 162, Washington, D.C.: IMF.
Ljungman, G (2009), Top-Down Budgeting—An Instrument to Strengthen Budget Management, Working Paper 09/243, Washington, D.C.: IMF.

[Napodano]

Other PFMBoarders are invited to add their own (or derived) bibliography on specific aspects of PFM. My previous post was deliberately on Public Expenditure Management, being that my main expertise.

Anyone on macroframework, taxation, PIM, internal and external audit, accounting and reporting?

Let's create a DEFINITIVE but DYNAMIC bibliography for all the PFM aspects! 

(BTW this is the 200th topic, almost coinciding with the first anniversary of the Board, to be celebrated on April 10th. Best wishes to our thriving community)

[andywynne]

Last year I produced this bibliography of pfm references most of which are available for free download:  http://publicfinanceafrica.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

[Napodano]

A new manual on performance-based budgeting  by the CLEAR Initiative ( http://www.theclearinitiative.org/ ) is attached.

Other interesting materials in the form of case studies  are avalable at http://www.theclearinitiative.org/Clear_resources.html

 - Performance in Government: The Evolving System of Performance and Evaluation Measurement, Monitoring, and Management in the United Kingdom
 - Implementing a Government-wide Monitoring and Evaluation System in South Africa
 - Evaluation of Government Performance and Public Policies in Spain
 - Mexico's M&E System: Scaling Up from the Sectoral to the National Level
 - Implementing a Subnational Results-Oriented Management and Budgeting System: Lessons from Medellín, Colombia
 - Insider Insights: Building a Results-Based Management and Evaluation System in Colombia
 - Experience with Institutionalizing Monitoring and Evaluation Systems in Five Latin American Countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Uruguay
 - The United States (US) Government's Method for Rating the Performance of All Programs—The Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)
 - The US PART System—Discussant Notes

[petagny]

Useful references. Thanks.

Just skimmed Marc Robinson's book and found these useful thoughts on programme budgeting and accrual accounting/budgeting:

'The discussion above makes it clear that cash accounting is imperfect for this task. Because cash accounting does not properly measure the costs of service delivery, it can distort program cost comparisons by making some programs look less costly than they really are – and less costly relative to other programs than they really are. Suppose, for example, budget decision‐makers wish to compare a health treatment program and a preventative health program. Health treatment is very capital‐intensive because a great deal of expensive equipment and buildings are used. Health prevention relies on information campaigns, and makes little used of costly infrastructure. If one compares these two programs on a cash accounting basis – that is, by looking at the cash expenditure which each undertakes – during a period when there is not such new investment in health treatment facilities underway (i.e. not many new hospital being built etc), then the comparison will be distorted. The health treatment programs costs will look artificially low, while this will not be the case for the preventative health program…

It is clear, then, that it is in principle better to base a program budgeting system on AA. AA measures of program costs facilitate much fairer comparisons of the costs of alternative programs. Accrual budgeting would be even better, because then the full cost of programs would be charged to ministry programs, giving them a powerful incentive to base their prioritization decisions on the real cost of programs, and not just on the level of cash expenditure that they require in any given year…

However, even though cash accounting creates some distortion in measures of comparative program costs, it cannot be said that these distortions are on the whole so serious as to prevent program budgeting from achieving its basic objective of improved expenditure prioritization.
Program budgeting has worked well in some countries with cash (or cash and commitment) accounting and budgeting systems. Moreover, amongst the factors which determine whether program budgeting works or not, the precision of the accounting system in measuring program costs is in most countries a much less important consideration that whether the budget process is designed to facilitate good prioritization decisions (see the Section 15). So in terms of making program budgeting work well, the introduction of AA is usually not the most important priority.

For developing countries in particular this is good news. They should not feel that they must combine the introduction of performance budgeting with a move to AA, let alone accrual budgeting. They should bear in mind that most program budgeting systems – including most recently the well‐designed system introduced in France in 2001‐2006 – have operated in a traditional cash or cash/commitments accounting and budgeting framework.'

So accrual accounting should not necessarily be seen as a priority for countries introducing performance budgeting. All the same, how do we get round the distortionary effect of 'lumpy' capital expenditures?

[Martin Johnson]

Interesting point raised m by Marc Robinson and followed up by Petagny. But presumably the economists among PFM practitioners would not simply be looking at cash spent on a programme in a given year if they were to undertake an analysis of its cost effectiveness compared to similar programmes elsewhere, let alone comparing with a different programme altogether (albeit in the same sector). So this would presumably mean an analysis of the cost effectiveness of a programme in a cash or modified cash accounting environment would require unpicking the investment spend from the recurrent spend, understanding the benefits and payback period and then applying the data.

In an accruals accounting system, much of this information would be ‘automatically’ generated’ (unsurprising, therefore, to see so few AA systems in operation). But even with good discounted information on the cost per unit of output or outcome, this would still need to be converted into a common currency (e.g. DALYs) if the cost effectiveness of programmes is to be compared.  Either way, it seems that such an exercise would require more than a simple lift of data from the accounting system.

[petagny]

Perhaps slightly tangential to Martin's point, here's something from a useful guide to CBA that describes the equivalence between cash and accrual accounting for capital costs, and the reasons for preferring the latter in project evaluation in the public sector.

'We deal here with the second problem, which is how to measure the costs of capital inputs given that their use is stretched over a number of periods into the future. As in the case of private-sector project evaluation, two methods of capital cost accounting could potentially be used — cash flow or accrual. Cash flow accounting involves simply including all outlays and inflows as they occur. Capital expenditures are costed in full (‘expensed’) when they are made, with appropriate shadow pricing used if they are purchased from distorted markets as discussed above. Capital expenditures must include all gross investment expenditures — additions to a project’s capital stock, replacement investment, as well as any scrap value salvaged at the end of the project’s useful life. Costs of financing and ongoing depreciation do not enter directly into the calculation of costs over and above the initial cash flow expenditures: that would be double counting. They may enter indirectly to the extent that financing gives rise to excess burdens, or to the extent that capital that has depreciated has been replaced.

Accrual accounting attempts to attach costs to the use of capital in the future rather than at the time of initial outlay. These costs are of two sorts — depreciation and financing costs. Depreciation is meant to reflect how much capital is ‘used up’ in each period of use, either due to obsolescence, wear and tear, or due to changes in the relatively price of the asset. In other words, it measures the extent to which the value of the asset falls over the period. The financing costs represent the forgone interest associated with holding real capital rather than putting the same funds into the financial capital market. Again, one must not mix elements of cash and accrual accounting. If the latter is used, no capital expenditures of any kind should be treated as costs when they are incurred; rather they are costed as they are used up.

Cash and accrual accounting for capital costs are alternative ways of presenting the same information. In principle, the present value of the accrual costs of a capital investment should equal its cash flow (or the present value of its cash flow for a sequence of investment expenditures). But, accrual accounting is inherently more difficult to use since it involves attributing a depreciation sequence to the use of capital, something which cannot readily be observed from market prices. Moreover, the principles of shadow pricing are much less transparent when using accrual accounting. For that reason, cash accounting is typically used for project evaluation in the public sector. The private sector prefers to use accrual accounting because of the information it provides to shareholders. It indicates the period-by-period profitability of a firm which is engaged in a multitude of ongoing projects. Presumably if financial accounts were on a project-by-project basis, cash flow accounting would serve at least equally as well.'

The key point, which I think agrees with what Martin is saying, is that 'In principle, the present value of the accrual costs of a capital investment should equal its cash flow.'

DALYs = disability adjusted life-years? Used in cost-utility analysis, mainly in the health sector. Also QALYs = quality adjusted life-years

[STONE]

I have been wondering (as well as wandering) for some time about whether Board Members would find it useful if we set up a bit of structure to the bibliography section.  Obviously we would need to set up a structure and that needs some suggestions.  Perhaps we might even consider a change of name from bibliography to "reference materials"or "references and tools" or "useful PFM stuff", or just "PFM stuff".

Some initial thoughts:

PFM General
PFM Cycle
Policy Design and Review
Strategy and Planning
Budget Preparation
Budget Implementation
Accounting and Monitoring
Reporting
Audit

Budget Classification
MTEFs
Programme Budgeting
Performance Budgeting

There's potentially a lot more and I am in danger of going and pillaging others' topic lists Bayesian Heresy or the PFM Blog for example.

How should we populate this?  It would be good if we had a drop box (or somesuch) for references that a moderator can classify.

I'm not sure how we might get round the issue of the board showing topics in date order of appearance.

[petagny]

With over 1,500 views, visitors are obviously finding the PFM bibliography a useful resource. I think more structure would definitely make sense.

I wonder if there's a way for members to indicate their areas of interest and then to alert them to new material?

As I moderate the 'Public Investment Management' subject-area, I would obviously make a bid for a designated section! Also 'fiscal decentralisation'?

[STONE]

What's in it so far....
Budgeting in Denmark,  2004,  Blondal, J and M Ruffner , OECD Journal on Budgeting, 4(1), 49-79, Paris: OECD.
Linking Policies and Budgets: Implementing Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks in a PRSP Context, 2005, De Renzio, P and S Smith,  ODI Briefing Paper; London: Overseas Development Institute.
Public Finances in the EMU, 2006, European Commission, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs , European Economy (3), Brussels: EC.
Public Finances in the EMU, 2009, European Commission, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs , European Economy (5), Brussels: EC.

Strengthening the Stability and Growth Pact, 2010, European Commission, Economic governance package (1):, Brussels: EC.
Embedding a Medium-Term Perspective in Budgeting, 2007, Fölscher, A  “Overview”, in CABRI, Are We Asking the Right Questions? 4th Annual CABRI Seminar, 13–15 December 2007, Pretoria: CABRI Secretariat.
Politics of Public Money: Spenders, Guardians, Priority Setters, and Financial Watchdogs inside the Canadian Government 2007 Good, D , Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
MTEF in Sweden, 2004, Gustafsson, A , in World Bank/Korea Development Institute, Reforming the Public Expenditure Management System: Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, Performance Management, and Fiscal Transparency, Conference proceedings, [no publication details].
Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks in a PRSP Context, 2003,  A Review of Experience in Implementing: A Synthesis of Eight Country Studies, , , Holmes, M and A Evans , London: Overseas Development Institute.
Fiscal Transparency: Kyrgyz Republic, 2008, Report on Observance of Standards and Codes— Module IMF, Washington, D.C.: IMF.
Fiscal Rules, 2009 —Anchoring Expectations for Sustainable Public Finances, IMF, Washington, D.C.: IMF.
Top-down Budgeting,  2006,  (as a Tool for Central Resource Management, 2006,  Kim, J M and C-K Park OECD Journal on Budgeting, 6(1), 87-127.
Kyrgyz Republic: Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Assessment, 2009, Shambetova, E, C Vanderweele and S Bruni  [no publication details]>
Fiscal Policy Rules, 1998, Kopits, G and S Symansky, IMF Occasional Paper 162, Washington, D.C.: IMF.
Top-Down Budgeting, 2009, Ljungman, G, —An Instrument to Strengthen Budget Management, Working Paper 09/243, Washington, D.C.: IMF.
Public Expenditure Management - A Contemporary Approach, 1998, Schick A., Book
Performance in Government, 2010,: The Evolving System of Performance and Evaluation Measurement, Monitoring, and Management in the United Kingdom http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEVACAPDEV/Resources/ecd_24.pdf
Government-wide Monitoring and Evaluation System Implementing one in South Africa 2010 http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTEVACAPDEV/Resources/ecd_wp_21_south_africa.pdf
Evaluation of Government Performance and Public Policies in Spain, 2010, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTEVACAPDEV/Resources/4585672-1251461875432/ecd_wp22_spain.pdf
Mexico's M&E System: Scaling Up from the Sectoral to the National Level, 2009, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTEVACAPDEV/Resources/4585672-1251461875432/mexico_me_wp20.pdf
Results-Oriented Management and Budgeting System: Implementing a Sub-national one in Medellín, Colombia, 2009, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTEVACAPDEV/Resources/4585672-1251461875432/implementing_results_wp19.pdf
Results-Based Management and Evaluation System - insights from building one in Columbia ,2008, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTEVACAPDEV/Resources/4585672-1251461875432/ecd_wp_18.pdf
Monitoring and Evaluation Systems - Experience in Institutionalising then in Five Latin American Countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, 2006, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEVACAPDEV/Resources/4585664-1254408803979/experience_inst_lac.pdf

The role of finance and public financial management reform in Accelerating the transition out of fragility  2011 Manuel, M., Gupta, S. and Ackroyd, P.
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?utm_source=cape&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20110603&id=5318&title=accelerating-transition-out-fragility-role-finance-public-financial-management-reform

Public financial management reforms: Does donor support to  in developing countries work? An analytical study of quantitative cross-country evidence 2011 de Renzio, P. Andrews, M. and Mills, Z.
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?utm_source=cape&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20110603&id=5719&title=pfm-public-financial-management-reform-developing-countries
Budget transparency: a clear solution? 2010 Moon, S.
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?utm_source=cape&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20110603&id=4896&title=tajikistan-budget-performance-report

Budget Support  Insights from recent evidence on some critical issues for design 2011 Tavakoli, H., Smith, G.
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?utm_source=cape&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20110603&id=5445&title=budget-support-design-evidence-pfm-public-financial-management

Planning and budgeting in Southern Sudan: starting from scratch Lessons for planning and budgeting systems in post-conflict settings 2010 ODI
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4980.pdf

Oh yes and Andy Wynne's very useful link....  http://publicfinanceafrica.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html  (sorry don't have time to add these now).

IMF Finance & Development magazine http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/03/index.htm
OECD Journal on Budgeting http://www.oecd.org/document/14/0,3746,en_2649_34119_2074062_1_1_1_1,00.html
Clear  http://www.theclearinitiative.org
Independent Evaluation Group - World Bank http://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/content/ieg/en/home.html




Board members may note that I have mangled up the usual academic referencing style.  When I read these I'm a bit interested in (i)  who wrote it (especially if I know them or of their work);  (ii) more interested in how recent it is, but the main thing I want to know is (iii) what it is about - so I think (iii) (ii) (i) is the right order.  Also some things have long titles with and without the scholarly colon introducing the sub-title.  I have mangled some of these. I have left in some of the publication details, but I don't think we should providing a cut and paste for members bibliographies and if we've got a hyper-link all those details can be dropped.  I guess that's a style suggestion. If publishers get peeved then so be it.  I have added some organisational links - not sure this is the best place for it...

Of course I haven't sorted them in any way.

No claims for dynamic or definitive just a step towards 'usefuller'

Can someone make this sticky?

[Napodano]

STONE,

what you propose is really important for the community and if you take up the task, it would exalt the knowledge-sharing of the PFM Board.

If it suits your plan, I could create a category (that is the grey-banner classification). I like the title you propose 'PFM references and tools'.
For each PFM tool subcategory a Board could be created. Each document would then have a topic by itself, where a summary is presented in the text and the document is attached (beware of hyperlinks as they go dead after a while).

Maybe too complicated? Bottom line, you make the call, if you feel like it and I make the basic structure in the Board.

[STONE]

I wasn't thinking that this would be a task for me alone- more of a place where board members can drop stuff into a list of documents under different titles referenced as I suggested.  I think adding more than that is too demanding. There's nothing to stop the inspired board member providing a review/commentary/critique, perhaps in the have "you seen this" category/board?

I appreciate that hyperlinks get broken but they still give a hint where to search and wouldn't most search engines pop up something relevant on a cut and past of the mangled way I have put the references?

Can we see if we get some more structure suggestions?