Beyond Best Practices

Abstract

This editorial argues that advancing public budgeting and finance scholarship requires strengthening the evidence underlying established professional practices. Building on the founding mission of Public Finance Journal, it calls for greater integration of prescriptive, evaluative, and explanatory knowledge to understand not only which financial management practices governments should adopt, but also their consequences and the conditions under which they are effective. Drawing on four research articles and two book reviews in this issue, the editorial highlights the trade-offs among fiscal stability, administrative efficiency, transparency, and democratic accountability. It identifies three priorities for the discipline: evaluating the outcomes of financial management practices, explaining variation in their effectiveness, and strengthening collaboration between scholars and practitioners. Together, these priorities offer a path toward more rigorous, actionable, and context-sensitive public finance scholarship.