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Budget Forecast Deviations in Municipal Governments: Determinants and Implications

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  • Bernardino Benito
  • María-Dolores Guillamón
  • Francisco Bastida

Abstract

type="main"> This paper analyses the determinants of municipalities’ budget forecast quality, showing opportunistic behaviour influenced by the electoral cycle. Incumbents overestimate revenue to spend more and underestimate expenditure in the quest for popularity and electoral support. Our results suggest that the budget forecast procedure should be made transparent and externally audited or monitored.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernardino Benito & María-Dolores Guillamón & Francisco Bastida, 2015. "Budget Forecast Deviations in Municipal Governments: Determinants and Implications," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 25(1), pages 45-70, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausact:v:25:y:2015:i:1:p:45-70
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/auar.12071
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    Cited by:

    1. Israel García, 2023. "Budget Forecast Errors in Spanish Municipalities: The Role of Transparency," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202327, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    2. Picchio, Matteo & Santolini, Raffaella, 2020. "Fiscal rules and budget forecast errors of Italian municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    3. Stewart Jones & Nurul Alam, 2019. "A machine learning analysis of citation impact among selected Pacific Basin journals," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 59(4), pages 2509-2552, December.
    4. Boukari, Mamadou & Veiga, Francisco José, 2018. "Disentangling political and institutional determinants of budget forecast errors: A comparative approach," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1030-1045.

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