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This paper investigates how state governments used budget balancing strategies to cope with budget shortfalls in the fiscal years between 2009 and 2013. Using data from the Fiscal Survey reports and Comprehensive Annual Financial Statements (CAFRs) covering all fifty states, the paper summarizes and analyzes several types of strategies such as state savings, federal aid, revenue enhancement and expenditure cutting in response to budget shortfalls during and after the Great Recession of 2008. In addition, findings from the three case studies in New York, Texas and Washington show distinct patterns in these states’ choices of balancing strategies to cope with budget shortfalls. New York adopted a more balanced approach between revenue increasing and expenditure cutting strategies, whereas Washington and Texas implemented more severe expenditure cutting strategies to address budget shortfalls.

Periods of fiscal decline present an opportunity for city officials to transform their local government into a leaner and more effective organization by targeting cuts to non-essential programs and services. However, the political nature of the fiscal retrenchment process means that such opportunity is often squandered. Could the application of strategic planning and performance management in cutback management lead to a more focused and targeted budget cutting? Advocates of rational management believe that information gathering, analysis and use in decision-making can help local governments adapt to a fiscal crisis by facilitating targeted cuts in expenditures that preserve administrative capacity, and avoiding across-the-board cuts that trim both the organization's muscle and fat. The results of this research show that rational analytic techniques do matter in budget cutting.

The aim of the paper is to evaluate fiscal adjustments that have occurred in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) countries in the last 35 years, and their consequences on the economic growth process by using the mean group (MG) estimators.

Our emphasis is on the effects of different composition of fiscal stimuli and consolidations. We compare the effects on the economic growth rate of different compositions of major fiscal changes. We use a cyclically adjusted value of the fiscal variables to leave aside variations of the fiscal variables induced by business cycle fluctuations.

Our empirical research of the effects of large changes in fiscal policy, both in case of a fiscal consolidation and of fiscal stimulus in the 18 EMU countries from 1980 to 2015, shows that adjustments by cutting current expenditures, rather than by tax increases are more likely to boost economic growth. It also shows that cuts of investment expenditures may reduce GDP growth. During fiscal stimulus episodes, tax cuts and public investments are more likely to increase growth than current public expenditure.

This is the first study devoted to the EMU countries. It should be underlined that the results obtained as for EMU countries are not necessarily applicable to other countries, as the different government size as well as different market institutions may influence the results.

Budgetary reform in the UK since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervention under a Labour government in 1976 has been prompted by a new conventional wisdom that public expenditure was too high, and consequently, "crowded out" private sector investment. Although this belief became widespread in western democracies, in Britain it developed relatively early and was closely linked to the wider debate about Britain's relative economic decline. The first section of this article reviews the main reforms of the budgetary process which these concerns prompted.

In the second section we note that, despite the political concern with reducing public expenditure in the 1980s, success has been limited and priority is now the improvement of the underlying control and evaluation mechanisms in government spending. In practice, the main policy activity of the Thatcher administrations was on gaining "value for money" from existing expenditure. These developments are discussed and the likelihood of success considered. The nature of the present annual budgetary cycle is described as are the most recent developments designed to finally gain some form of effective expenditure control.

Builds on the efforts of an earlier study to enhance marketers′ ability to evaluate earnings performance accurately by first presenting hands‐on illustrative examples of two approaches to adjusting the income statement for earnings shocks and estimating the earnings of core operations. Examines the impact on marketing managers of the “fallout” that may result from changes in management policies which are prompted by the perceptions of poor earnings performance. This fallout includes: challenges by upper management regarding the wisdom and effectiveness of the marketing strategy; marketers′ reduced ability to execute the marketing plan owing to cost‐cutting campaigns that result in reduced marketing expenditures (e.g. advertising and sales promotion expenditures); and higher projected rates of return (i.e. higher “hurdle rates”) required for investment proposals before they are considered acceptable. Concludes with the presentation of strategies which may be employed by marketers to respond to and negotiate with upper management when policy changes designed to cut operating and investment expenditures constrain marketers′ ability to execute marketing strategy aggressively and effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical support for managers and investors and help them to identify corporate investment decisions on research and development (R&D) rationally.

Grouping and regression analysis are employed in the research.

The paper finds that managers in firms with medium accounting performance and at the border of profit target are prone to manage earnings by real R&D transactions, namely reducing R&D expenditures.

The conclusions are of great significance for innovation promotion in China.