Long-term Budgeting Research Articles

Experiences from the European Region: case studies and scenarios to inform ways forward in digital health

Abstract Member States in the WHO European Region face similar challenges when it comes to strengthening their HIS and implementing digital health solutions. From WHO/Europe’s work with its Member States, several important preconditions have become apparent for successful and sustainable digital transformation. Firstly, the importance of recognising that implementing digital tools is not a one-off investment, but that this takes a long-term vision including long-term budgeting. Having business continuity plans also is a key element of sustainable implementation of digital tools, that is often not adequately addressed in practice. Secondly, the importance of comprehensive strategic planning. Implementing digital tools is not only about software and hardware, but also about people and processes. Here it is also crucial for policymakers to understand that, to be able to harvest the benefits of data that are gathered by means of digital tools, resources for data processing and analysis also need to be made available. Last but not least, an important precondition for successful digital transformation is stakeholder involvement. Often, new software is developed without adequately involving the end-user, resulting in for example apps that do not meet patients’ needs. Or in electronic health record systems that are not user-friendly for the healthcare staff that need to enter the data, with incomplete and low quality information as a consequence. Stakeholder involvement is essential in strategic planning for digital health as well. Think for example about standardization and accreditation agencies, and institutes that will be secondary users of data for statistics and research. In this presentation, several case studies from across the European Region will be presented, illustrating how digital transformation in health can be successfully and sustainably implemented.

Performance-based funding and institutional practices of performance prediction

ABSTRACT Since the financial crisis in 2007–2008, higher education systems across Europe have increasingly become subject to performance-based funding reforms. Performance-based funding in higher education thus constitutes one of the most tangible and widespread examples of how performance data are incorporated into governance instruments in educational governance, and in consequence, how a mundane management practice like budgeting has become a data practice. This article investigates how university managers predict their future performance in the context of budgeting. In order to understand the enacted relations between the present and the future implied in practices of prediction, the article analyzes the meticulous and often invisible practices of prolonging individual data points into the future in two case studies, encompassing long-term budgeting in a Danish and a Norwegian university. The analysis shows that these prolongation practices differ across the two cases, involving serial and continuous temporalities, respectively. However, in both cases, the prolongations are made up of various calculations, regulations, sensations and affectivities, which then become constitutive in the sense that the resulting long-term budgets severely restrict the room for maneuver of managers. The article thus conceptualizes these data practices as preemptively restrictive and prospective decision loops, affecting decision-making in the present.

Social media and family investment behavior

This study delves into the intricate connections between family investment habits and social media. Through an analysis of social media use patterns, information exposure, family financial literacy, and the impact of social media on investment decisions, this research aims to shed light on the intricacies that characterize contemporary family investment plans. Using regression models to examine data from 75 countries between 2000 and 2022, this research aims to illuminate how social media users see financial risks and the relationship between exposure and risk tolerance. Furthermore, the study examines how social media plays a part in long-term budgeting, specifically whether families use it to set investment targets. This research also looks at how people in a family use technology and how social media affects people's openness to new financial tools. Additionally, it investigates the effects, both good and bad, of social media on family conversations on money and investing. The thorough examination of these factors in this research sheds light on how family investing habits have evolved in the digital era. The findings of this study reveal the impact of internet media on family financial dynamic cycles, which is of great importance to scholars, professionals, and lawmakers.

Linking Budget and Policies: The Case of Ivory Coast

In the case of Ivory Coast, some budgetary reforms have been implemented since 1999 in order to improve the budget allocation and ensure a better translation of development strategies into budget. Unfortunately, taking into account national strategies and policies have not always been the main preoccupation during budgeting. However, the requirements of managing for results bring the fiscal authorities to pay particular attention to the establishment of the link between policies and budgets. Moreover, establishing this link between policies and budget is becoming a major issue since the West African Economic Monetary Union (WAEMU) adopted in 2009 new budgetary reforms to promote performance budgeting. So, this study addresses the issue of linking policies and budgets in the specific case of Ivory Coast. To that end, it focuses on the existing gaps between the budgeting process and policies through the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) or simply the National Development Plans (NDPs). The analysis of the current budgeting process shows that the budgeting is not based on the PRSPs and sectoral plans; the integration between planning and budgeting is low, the budgeting is done through a resource-based approach and the medium and long-term budgeting is not established. Moreover, the Parliament has not been involved in the budget process and PRSP elaboration especially in the last years. Only the civil society has been involved in the PRSP elaboration but they are not consulted during the budget process. Therefore, attention should be given to the challenges related to strategic planning, management style and actors to be involved. This must be done through (i) the drafting of sectoral plans based on the NDPs/PRSPs; (ii) the integration between planning and budgeting; (iii) the introduction of a strategic phase and a medium-term perspective to the budget process; (iv) the shifting from a resource-based to a results-based approach; (v) the increase of the involvement of parliament and civil society in the budget process. Further, the MTEF process that started in 2010 should be reinforced through the completion of a Macro-economic framework and a Medium Term Budgetary Framework, a national MTEF to give the ceilings on expenditure to line ministries for a medium and long-term view in order to establish their sectoral MTEFs. Moreover, the public financial management reforms should continue in order to reinforce the budget credibility which is essential in the establishment of good and reliable MTEFs.

Sequential Model for Long-Term Planning of Building Renewal and Capital Improvement

The paper puts forward a mixed integer linear programming model to support the long-term planning and budgeting for renewal and capital improvements of residential buildings, i.e., to select the optimal sequence of repair and improvement actions over a predefined planning horizon. The input is provided by the evaluation of the building performance according to a set of criteria. Then a set of possible repairs, replacements and improvements needs to be proposed together with the estimates of their cost and benefits; the latter are expressed by increments of building performance ratings according to predefined criteria. The renewal and modernization measures are not mutually independent: at least some of them are complementary and should be carried out in a specific order. The optimization problem was to define the order of renewal/improvement measures resulting with the highest benefits available within the budget, or to achieve the required levels of building performance at the lowest cost. A unique feature of the model is the approach to the constraints on sequential relationships between the measures and to their selection. The model can be used to construct long-term renewal and capital improvement plans.

Enhancing the efficiency of infrastructure projects to improve access to finance

While there has been much discussion about the large infrastructure needs in Asia and the Pacific, less attention has been paid to public expenditure efficiency in infrastructure services delivery. New constructions are not the only solution, especially when governments have limited capital to invest. Globally, new infrastructure projects face delays and cost overruns, leading to an inefficient use of public resources. The root causes include the lack of transparency in project selection, the lack of project preparation, the silo approach by public entities in assessing feasibility studies, and the lack of public sector capacity to fully develop a bankable pipeline of projects. To tackle these issues, governments need a smarter investment approach and to do so, enhancing public service efficiency is very crucial. The paper suggests a “whole life cycle” (WLC) approach as the main strategic solution for the discussed issues and challenges. We expand the definition of WLC to include the entire life cycle of the infrastructure asset from need identification to its disposal. The stages comprise planning, preparation, procurement, design, construction, operation and maintenance, and disposal. This is because we believe any efficient or inefficient decision throughout such a wide life cycle influences the quality of public services. Hence, in this holistic approach, infrastructure life cycle consists of four phases: planning, preparation, procurement, and implementation. Governments could enhance public efficiency and thus improve access to finance throughout the WLC by several solutions. These are (i) preparing infrastructure master plan and pipelines and long-term budgeting during the planning phase; (ii) establishing framework and guidelines and improving governance during preparation phase; (iii) promoting standardization, transparency, open government, and contractual consistency during the procurement phase; and finally (iv) continued role of government and total asset management during the implementation phase. In addition to these phase-specific means, key WLC solutions include proper use of technology, capacity building, and private participation in general and public-private partnership (PPP) in particular.

Long-term budgeting: A cautionary tale from U.S. experience

There is a growing tendency, among central budget-makers and commentators, to argue budgets should be made for the long-term, rather than the traditional annual budget. This tendency is especially strong in the United States, where it has become virtually a conventional wisdom. This article explains, first, why that approach fits very poorly with most of the goals of budgeting. It then evaluates U.S. experience with approximations of long-term budgeting of three types: i) medium-term limits on discretionary spending, ii) the Social Security programme, and the iii) Medicare programme. That experience illustrates the reasons why long-term budgeting would not be a positive reform. They include the fantastical nature of many long-term forecasts, strong incentives for both deception and self-deception about the effects of planned budget totals, and ignoring the basic task of budgeting, which is to reconcile preferences about policy details to preferences about budget totals in a way that considers each.

Inotera Memories: Leader or Dreamer

This case can be divided into two sections. The first section focuses on how Inotera Memories can effectively analyze capital expenditure and return on investment for long-term capital budgeting in a capital-intensive, highly volatile and competitive industry. The following section is to highlight the strategy shift of Inotera. The DRAM business environment is highly volatile, and continuously requires large amounts of capital to improve process technologies, reduce production costs and achieve economies of scale. The challenge is greater because Inotera Memories is a joint venture of two entities with very different backgrounds, cultures and objectives, but which are not necessarily incompatible. Fei Lin, an assistant vice president in Inotera, and Charles Kau, the president of Inotera, play the central roles in this case study. Fei has been instructed to prepare a report to the board of directors that presents an effective investment evaluation model to ensure the success of Inotera's business model and expansion project. On the other hand, Charles proposed the issue of strategy shift to determine how it has been implemented and whether it needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, and new market segments.

제로에너지 공동주택 추가 공사요소의 장기수선충당금 분석 연구

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport had announced 'Building Energy Performance Improvement Plan' to achieve Zero Energy building with sufficient thermal insulation capability by 2025. However, the uncertainty regarding the high initial investment costs and the excessive repair costs had been a concern in the construction market and impeding the prevalence of zero energy houses. By analysing the long-term repair cycle and costs for the additional energy saving elements from the Zero Energy Housing Complex in Nowon-gu, this study aims to provide a basis for the long-term repair plan budgeting guidelines in order to benefit future Zero Energy housing cost estimation process. As a result of the anlaysis, the large-scale long-term repair occurred after the completion of the 25th-year(for elements of external insulation, hign insulation windows and heat recovery ventilation system) and 30 year cycle(for elements of high insulation doors and photovoltaic equipment). The additional long-term repair costs for each household was analyzed by 28,988 won/month. In the case of the future active construction market, the additional costs is expected to decrease.

Using Pavement Management to Support Maintenance and Engineering Policy Decisions for Small and Mid-Sized Municipalities

This article presents the development of a pavement management system (PMS) for the town of Christiansburg, VA, and the effectiveness of pavement management applications as a decision support tool. Researchers worked with personnel from the town of Christiansburg to gather inventory data and past work history on all of the pavements within the town’s network. First, the network was defined by importing existing GIS data into commercially available PMS software. The expected pavement performance was then modeled using age data along with surface condition information gathered during a survey of the network. The surface condition, age, and performance data were all combined to develop several maintenance and rehabilitation scenarios for the pavement network. The results indicated that implementing the PMS provided a framework that significantly enhanced the ability of the municipality’s engineers to determine the optimal work types and work scenarios for long-term budgeting and planning.

Long-Term Budgeting

RETURN TO ISSUEPREVNewsNEXTLong-Term BudgetingView Author Information C&EN WashingtonCite this: Chem. Eng. News 2013, 91, 4, 28–29Publication Date (Print):January 28, 2013Publication History Published online31 March 2014Published inissue 28 January 2013https://doi.org/10.1021/cen-09104-govpol2Copyright © 2013 Chemical & Engineering NewsArticle Views8Altmetric-Citations-LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InReddit PDF (92 KB) SUBJECTS:Students Get e-Alerts

The ABC of Long-Term Capital Budgeting

Our paper tests whether the expected rate-of-return estimates for long-term capital budgeting from the FFM and CAPM could outperform those from a simpler risk-neutral term-structure-based model. Our paper first estimates reasonable shrinkage (input parameters) based on historical data. We find1. Factor exposures drift(ed) significantly over longer horizons2. Since 1970, the arithmetic (geometric) equity premium relative to long- term Treasuries has been only 1.7% (0.8%) per year. This decline was primarily due to higher long-term Treasury yields, not lower average stock returns.Together, this evidence suggest that a user of the FFM and CAPM should drastically shrink the model-input parameters to the point where project cost- of-capital is often no longer meaningfully heterogeneous, i.e., different from that of a risk-neutral pricing model. In addition, the data suggests that3. Textbook application of both the FFM and CAPM failed to predict subse- quent rates of returns given estimated inputs, often even with the wrong sign.This evidence is fundamentally opposite to the recommendations in all major finance textbooks and curriculums in use today.

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Estimates Incorporating Site Effects--An Example from Indiana, U.S.A

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has published probabilistic earthquake hazard maps for the United States based on current knowledge of past earthquake activity and geological constraints on earthquake potential. These maps for the central and eastern United States assume standard site conditions with S-wave velocities of 760 m/s in the top 30 m. For urban and infrastructure planning and long-term budgeting, the public is interested in similar probabilistic seismic hazard maps that take into account near-surface geological materials. We have implemented a probabilistic method for incorporating site effects into the USGS seismic hazard analysis that takes into account the first-order effects of the surface geologic conditions. The thicknesses of sediments, which play a large role in amplification, were derived from a P-wave refraction database with over 13,000 profiles, and a preliminary geology-based velocity model was constructed from available information on S-wave velocities. An interesting feature of the preliminary hazard maps incorporating site effects is the approximate factor of two increases in the 1-Hz spectral acceleration with 2 percent probability of exceedance in 50 years for parts of the greater Indianapolis metropolitan region and surrounding parts of central Indiana. This effect is primarily due to the relatively thick sequence of sediments infilling ancient bedrock topography that has been deposited since the Pleistocene Epoch. As expected, the Late Pleistocene and Holocene depositional systems of the Wabash and Ohio Rivers produce additional amplification in the southwestern part of Indiana. Ground motions decrease, as would be expected, toward the bedrock units in south-central Indiana, where motions are significantly lower than the values on the USGS maps.

Measuring Fiscal Sustainability on the Municipal Level: A German Case Study

The consequences of ageing populations for federal and state fiscal policies are, due to the research efforts of the last two decades, well known. However, it is rather less well known how the municipal level is affected. Therefore, by using a modification of the sustainability definition formulated by Blanchard, Chouraqui, Hagemann, and Sartor (1990) and the concepts of Auerbachs, Kotlikoffs and Gokhales Generational Accounting (1991) we define a new framework focusing on capital stock, financial management and depreciation of municipal assets. This papers purpose is to deliver a concept which is able to provide sound indicators for long-term budgeting by local authorities. We apply this framework to three German cities with different typologies, Munich, Freiburg and Schwabisch Hall.

Deviance Reporting as a Tool in Continuous Quality Improvement. Regulation and Stimulation through Legislation

AbstractSince 1994 all Norwegian hospitals have to report events of deviance (i.e. events that caused or might cause harm to any patient) to the "Database for Reported Events" of the Norwegian Board of Health. In 1997 in total 4,433 events were reported, of these 620 had 'major negative effect to the patient', while 113 were classified as unnatural deaths. Huge differences exist in the frequencies of hospitals' deviance reporting, ranging from less than one to more than 100 reports per 100.000 patient days.The regulation by law to report any major deviance event, enforces the local quality improvements in the hospital. The dialogue within and with the hospitals is stressed, to ensure the continuous quality improvement 'within service'. The legal regulations cause fear of sanctions from national authorities — which is not the purpose for the national system for deviance reporting. So far, the obligation to report to the national database seems to stimulate and fertilise the local handling of deviance events within the hospitals, as the number of events reported is steadily increasing.A survey including all hospitals and their owners indicate that the hospital managers only to some degree actually use the experiences gained through deviance reporting to stimulate continuous quality improvement, as the feed-back loop is not used systematically. The knowledge on infirmities, reported as deviance events, is only rarely taken into consideration in long-term planning and budgeting by the hospital owners.

Bargaining Strength in Budgetary Processes

Studies of government budget-making recurrently describe it as a bargaining process between `guardians' and `advocates'. Yet this observation has not been implemented in formal modelling of budgetary processes. This paper employs a Nash model to analyse local government budgeting. The model is implemented by assuming two different sets of assumptions about the conflict points. The paper evaluates the explanatory power of the two interpretations by estimating the models on a cross-sectional time-series dataset from Norwegian counties. Finally, we examine the impact of institutional procedures on bargaining power. The paper defines the bargaining parameters of an asymmetrical Nash model as endogenous variables, and estimates the impact of election years, long-term budgeting and the managerial style of budget-making. It is found that budgetary procedures and election cycles affect the bargaining strength of the negotiators.

Allocation Formulas for Budgeting Library Materials

The author argues that a book allocation formula must be scientific, i.e., theoretically and empirically sound, to be a viable, long-term budgeting technique for collection development. The paper explains why, despite their appearance, most published formulas are not scientific, but, rather, merely notationally simplified expressions of arbitrary procedures. The author develops and applies criteria that distinguish between scientific and procedural formulas in published works. The paper concludes that, if currently available formulas are successful, they owe their success to political acceptance, not to a defensible theoretical framework.