Accounting devices that artificially reduce the measured fiscal deficit can be analyzed as transactions involving unrecognized assets and liabilities. Different accounting systems recognize different sets of assets and liabilities and are thus vulnerable to different sets of devices. Some...

This paper provides an overview of the Public Sector Balance Sheet (PSBS) Database, a dataset developed in the context of the October 2018 Fiscal Monitor. The dataset provides a comprehensive picture of public wealth for 38 countries, and a narrower picture for further 37 countries and...

We construct a comprehensive public sector balance sheet for Finland from 2000 to 2016 by complementing general government statistics with data on public corporations and public pensions. We show that exposure to valuation changes in equity markets through asset holdings and increases in pension...

This paper assesses the advantages and disadvantages of the French and British public expenditure management systems as used in Africa. The main differences are in budget execution and government accounting. In both francophone and anglophone Africa, there are common weaknesses in the...

Accounting devices that artificially reduce the measured fiscal deficit can be analyzed as transactions involving unrecognized assets and liabilities. Different accounting systems recognize different sets of assets and liabilities and are thus vulnerable to different sets of devices. Some...

This paper reviews the role of accounting in budget system reform from the perspective of emerging economies who wish to adopt the OECD''s performance budgeting reforms. While many OECD countries, pursuing the reforms associated with the New Public Management, have moved their accounting systems...

The paper considers the various procedures and practices relating to budgeting and accounting of foreign aid, and points out that as a result of the high degree of ringfencing associated with the aid, a kind of functional dyarchy has emerged with serious implications for expenditure management...

In the past decade, developing countries (DCs) have been encouraged to reform their public expenditure management systems and have increasingly embarked on major projects to computerize their government operations. Most popular among these have been projects to computerize government accounting...

This paper describes the reforms introduced in the New Zealand public sector since the mid-1980s. The reforms included corporatization and privatization of most state-owned enterprises, the shift from a cash-basis to an accrual-basis accounting system and the compilation of a balance sheet for...

This paper presents a framework for planning the development of computerized government budgeting and accounting systems in economies in transition and developing economies. It argues that a comprehensive framework is needed to enable fiscal management issues to be addressed effectively, then...