Commentary: Political Culture and Revenue Forecasting

• Date: 01 March 2014
• Published date: 01 March 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12202
• Author: Dall W. Forsythe

Political Culture and Revenue Forecasting 203

Commentary

Dall W. Forsythe is adjunct professor

and senior fellow in the Robert F. Wagner

School of Public Affairs at New York

University. He served as New York State’s

budget director under Governor Mario M.

Cuomo and is author of Memos to the

Governor: An Introduction to State

Budgeting.

E-mail: dall.forsythe@gmail.com

Dall W. Forsythe

New York University

Many articles on public budgeting are infor-

mative. Some are also thoughtful. Few are

wise.  e discussion of revenue forecast-

ing and the budget process by John L. Mikesell and

Justin M. Ross in their article “State Revenue Forecasts

and Political Acceptance:  e Value of Consensus

Forecasting in the Budget Process” goes beyond

informative and thoughtful to wise.  e case study

of revenue forecasting in Indiana state government

is informative.  e review of the literature on state

revenue forecasting is thoughtful.  e wisdom lies in

the authors’ conclusion that the parties involved in the

budget process are better served by a forecasting process

that produces revenue projections that are accepted and

operate as constraints in the budgetary process than by

projections that sometimes turn out to be more accu-

rate after the fact. As Mikesell and Ross put it,

[T]he forecast represents the beginning of a

political bargain over what assumptions are to

be used in determining the policies that will

take place in the near-term budget cycle, and

this suggests that the study of revenue forecast-

ing must expand to include an understanding

Political Culture and Revenue Forecasting