Marc Robinson Blog

Budgeting / PFM

Attacking Budgetary Incrementalism

- April 13, 2022 | March 18, 2022 - Marc Robinson comment

There is wide agreement that attacking budgetary incrementalism is an important objective of budget reform. But when we go into battle against incrementalism, we need to be clear on what exactly we are fighting against.…

Unit Cost Budgeting: Use Selectively (4/4)

- February 1, 2022 | February 1, 2022 - Marc Robinson comment

The idea that governments should base their budgets on output unit costs is very influential. Everywhere in the world one finds people who think that unit costs are the key to making performance budgeting work.…

Budgeting / Government Expenditure / Performance Budgeting / PFM

Unit Cost Budgeting: The Uncertainty Problem (3/4)

- January 25, 2022 | January 20, 2022 - Marc Robinson comment

In this blog piece – the third in a series of four – I look at why budgeting based on unit costs doesn’t work well for services where there is a lot of uncertainty about…

Monitoring & Evaluation / Performance Budgeting / PFM

When Unit Costs Don’t Work (2/4)

- January 19, 2022 | January 19, 2022 - Marc Robinson comment

In this blog piece — the second of a four-part series on unit cost budgeting — I look at why unit cost budgeting cannot be applied to outputs which are highly “heterogeneous,” of which there…

Monitoring & Evaluation / Performance Budgeting / PFM

Unit Cost Budgeting? (1/4)

- January 14, 2022 | January 13, 2022 - Marc Robinson 1 Comment

Funding public services based on output unit costs is a great idea. However, it only works for selected government services. The idea that the entire government budget should be based on output unit costs is…

Performance Budgeting / PFM / Uncategorized

The Illusion of Outcome-Based Budgeting

- November 28, 2021 | November 28, 2021 - Marc Robinson 2 Comments

The notion that performance budgeting means budgeting based on outcomes is surprisingly widespread. It is, however, a misconception – a misconception which has led to confusion and missteps in PFM reform in some countries, particularly…

Fiscal policy / Government Expenditure / PFM

Making Spending Review Fit for Purpose

- September 1, 2021 | September 1, 2021 - Marc Robinson comment

Spending review, as I wrote recently, will be needed more than ever in the post-pandemic era. Surely, then, it is encouraging that there has over the past decade been a major expansion in the number…

Performance Budgeting

Don’t Confuse Indicators and Targets

- August 4, 2021 | August 5, 2021 - Marc Robinson comment

One of the problems which bedevils performance budgeting – and performance management more generally – is the failure of some to clearly distinguish between performance indicators and performance targets, and to properly understand the roles…

Performance Budgeting / PFM

Non-Performing Performance Indicators

- July 19, 2021 | July 20, 2021 - Marc Robinson 6 Comments

It is shocking that, in quite a few countries which embarked on performance budgeting reforms years ago, performance indicators remain awful. Performance indicators are, after all, a basic building block of any performance budgeting system.…

three bicycles parked in front of building

Government Expenditure / Health Care

Population Aging and Public Expenditure: Lessons from Japan

- June 25, 2021 | June 25, 2021 - Marc Robinson comment

I’ve commented previously on the widespread tendency to exaggerate the impact of population ageing on public expenditure. Sure, it is an important source of upward spending pressure, particularly on long-term care and pensions. However, by…