Financial Management in a Federal State. International and National Approaches to Reform

In Austria, there is a close link in many respects between public financial management and current approaches to reforming the tasks involved and the federal system. The need for action was most recently voiced, but given short shrift, at the Austrian constitutional convention. A workshop on "Reforming the Fiscal Equalisation System and Public Financial Management – International Experience and Reform Perspectives for Austria", assembling well-known experts from Germany, Switzerland and Austria in the Autumn of 2005, offered numerous theoretical insights and practical approaches for the upcoming modernisation of public financial management.