政府预算信息公开的国际经验

International Experience in Opening Government Budgeting

政府预算信息公开是现代国家治理的重要手段之一。虽然学术界对预算公开的定义和标准还存在争议,但这并没有阻止各国预算公开实践的步伐。中国近年开始逐步推进政府预算信息公开,取得了可喜的成绩,但尚存在一些不足。十八届三中全会明确提出了建立公开透明的预算制度的要求,这为继续推进我国财政预算公开奠定了坚实的政治基础。本文选取了六个代表性的国家,对它们启动预算公开的背景、实践、及遇到的挑战进行了梳理,以期为进一步完善中国政府预算信息公开提供了有益的借鉴。

Open budgeting is one of the major approaches used to improve governance in the modern state. Although the definition of budget transparency is still being debated, open budgeting has been common practice in both developed and developing countries. In recent years, China has experimented with making government budgeting more transparent, which has significantly improved budgeting accountability. However, a lot of effort needed to be invested in open budgeting. In 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party made a clear requirement for building a transparent budgeting system, which enhances the political support for increasing budgeting transparency in China. This paper selects six comparable countries and examines their backgrounds, approa- ches, and challenges in opening government budgets. The review of international experience offers a useful reference for China to further improve its budget transparency.