Public budgets and budgeting in Europe: State of the art and future challenges

Traditionally, budgeting has been the process through which governments decide how much to spend on what, limiting expenditures to the revenues available and preventing overspending. Overtime, budgeting has increasingly been expected to perform different roles and functions, becoming an important political medium, a tool for providing impulses to the economy and the society, a fundamental governance and management device, and a central accountability channel. This multiplicity of functions has translated into a variety of budget formats and bases and in increasingly complex budgeting processes. This chapter aims to discuss how budgeting has been practiced and studied over the last few decades by looking at the evolution of public budget functions, formats and processes overtime, and the related implications and challenges for practice, policy, and research.