Contemporary Issues and Challenges in Public Financial Management

“With public finances under stress from multiple crises, public financial management is vital to the success of public policies. With chapters from experienced practitioners and academics, this book successfully combines contemporary theorizing and practice across diverse countries. I commend it to political leaderships, finance ministries, practitioners, researchers and students.”

— David Heald , University of Glasgow

“Up to the mid-2000s, PFM remained an obscure specialist subject, out of public view and often neglected. The financial crash changed all that. Since then, the importance of robust fiscal tools and institutions to buttress them has become well understood. This book tells us what we need to know.”

— Lord Andrew Tyrie , former Chair, Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and Commons Treasury Committee, UK

“This volume creates an important space for the debate on how to build better PFM systems in the face of persistent crises. The success of PFM will greatly depend on the quality of institutions that govern it. The book is an essential read for policymakers and practitioners dedicated to improving fiscal outcomes and ensuring value for money.”

— Njuguna Ndung'u , former Cabinet Secretary, National Treasury and Economic Planning, Kenya

“This book brings the topic of public financial management (PFM) remarkably alive. Its authors collectively take seriously institutional contexts as well as engagement with the public. In terms of applications, it addresses many of the greatest public policy challenges of our time, including (among others) climate change, digitalization, and declining public infrastructure, and makes a compelling case that these are public finance challenges that require an understanding of PFM to address them. I can hardly wait to use it in class, and to push students to think based on the discussions in this book about how to apply PFM to policy issues they care about.”

— Mark Hallerberg , Professor of Public Management and Political Economy, Hertie School, Berlin

Richard Allen is a senior consultant and global adviser on public finance. He has advised finance ministers and governments in more than 70 countries worldwide. Richard has held senior positions at HM Treasury, the Board of the European Investment Bank, the OECD, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the IMF.

Philipp Krause is a research fellow in German politics and government at the University of Potsdam, where he also teaches. He has held leadership positions at CABRI, Africa’s network of ministries of finance, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and at ODI. He also held various appointments with the World Bank, GIZ, and the government of Mexico.