ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on changes of budget allocations in real terms, from 1978 through 1984, controlling for the influence of inflation. It is also appropriate to warn the reader that Israel's budget does not tell the whole story of the government's resource allocations. The finding of real-value incrementalism requires coming to terms with one of the issues that has troubled the writing about incrementalism: what measure of budget change should be labeled "incremental," and what "nonincremental". If a nonincremental budget change is one that increases or decreases an item's share of the total budget by at least 1 percent, then there have been few cases of nonincremental budget changes during Israel's period of high inflation. Sound and fury signifying nothing is an appropriate label for real budget changes in the context of high inflation. The chapter determines the winners and losers in the inflation-ridden budgets of 1978-84.
