Appreciating how government budgeting systems and policies vary is best understood by comparing and analyzing the political cultural, historic, economic, and institutional contexts in which they are formulated, adopted, and executed. This book argues that even similar-appearing institutions and budgetary procedures may very well differ in practice due to the influence of a government’s political cultural and historical experiences.

The great budgetary transformation of central Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union demonstrates the critical importance of economic context, political culture, history, and institutions in the recreation of public financial management systems. Since the collapse of the USSR, countries in this region have served as fiscal laboratories that experiment with budgetary reforms. This includes countries like Hungary and Poland that joined the European Union.

This chapter examines budgeting in the United States, its budgetary institutions, culture, and policies, from the founding of the republic in the 1700s through the Trump administration. The US Constitution is the world’s oldest functioning government document, and its budgetary rules reflect the country’s ongoing debate about fiscal federalism, and how the federal goverment should manage its fiscal and macroeconomic policies.

Latin America has stignificantly improved its budgetary effectiveness during the past thirty years, despite a widespread variation in political, demographic, and income levels. Bureaucratic authoritarian regimes have evolved into contribute to public finance stabilization. Significant problems remain in the financing of such basic services as education and health care. Expenditure control weakenesses remain at the managerial and operational levels of government.

Though geographically diverse, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Iraq share some interesting commonalities. All have been heavily influenced by external, primarily European, budgetary models and practices. After the 1949 Revolution, China turned to the Soviet Union for five-year planning and budgetary models and guidelines. Iraq, a former British colony also turned to the Soviet Union for guidance during the Cold War, and more recently its budgetary processes have been influenced by the American occupation. Like Iraq, Nigeria was a British colony, and Indonesia a former Dutch colony, and both these countries were influenced by their colonial histories.

The EU member states engage in budgeting through a set of supranational fiscal procedures outlined in EU treaties and supporting legislation. The EU itself is a suprnational government with its own budget and budgetary institutions, procedures, and programs. It enforces these macrobudgetary rules that significantly constrain the policy decisions of the individual member states.

This chapter examines the budgetary behavior of the former countries of the British Empire, now known as Commonwealth countries. Orginally created by the 1931 Statute of Westminister that recast the British Empire as a “Commonwealth of nations,” the modern Commonwealth consists of a fifty-four-country network of disparate people created in 1949. The chapter in particular examines the budgetary practices of the United Kingdom and India.

All governments have budgets. Budgeting is a core state function. Effective budgeting empowers the state to prioritize policies, allocate resources, and discipline the bureaucracy. Proficient budgeting contributes to efficient fiscal and macroeconomic policies. This book offers a comparative framework that identifies eight categores called cultural clusters that help identify the budgetary institutions and policies adopted by different governments.