ABSTRACT
Decision makers do not have the cognitive and analytical capabilities needed to process all pieces of information flowing from decision environments. Budget decision makers are bombarded by masses of information. People can understand the bounded rationality in the case of the governmental budget process. Budgetary incrementalism reveals a systematic interaction among main budget actors. Agency budget officers tend to avoid requesting budgets that are too high or too low. As much as budgetary incrementalism has dominated the study of budget processes in the United States, it has been exposed to critiques from three directions: the unit of analyzing budget choices, the concept of budget base and overall conceptual confusion. Using fiscal data of 403 English local governments during the 1980s and the 1990s, Boyne, Ashworth, and Powell tested whether budget decision maker's tendency to protect budget base could explain local budget changes.
