Decisive Decision Making in the Executive Budget Process: Analyzing the Political and Economic Propensities of Central Budget Bureau Analysts

Some 50 years after V. O. Key first asked the central question of budget allocation, we still lack a general theory of microbudgeting. This article focuses on budgetary decision making by central budget bureau analysts and describes the framework of a theory of microbudgeting based on the notion of budgets as multifaceted problems, requiring multiple rationalities for redress or solutions, and predicting that, when faced with a political imperative, budgeteers will recommend a politically rational alternative instead of one which is economically rational. The results from the experimental design and logistic regression models indicated that budgeteers do incorporate multiple rationalities into their decisions. Moreover, there is a significant difference in how inexperienced and "seasoned" budgeteers integrate various rationalities into their budget recommendations.