What influence has entrepreneurial budgeting had on budget reform? Dan Cothran examines three new approaches to budgeting that use decentralization in an effort to stimulate entrepreneurial behavior by public administrators. One method is used by some local governments in the United States, the second is used by the national governments of several industrial democracies, and the third is proposed as a way to improve U.S. defense budgeting. After top policy makers have established their overall control through broad guidelines, states the author, the new methods decentralize actual management decisions much as a market does by providing agency managers with incentives to be both efficient and effective. In addition, the new methods aim to make administrators more accountable for the results of their decisions by monitoring actual performance more than in the past.
