Introduction: Public budgeting in search for an identity: state of the art and future challenges Mariafrancesca Sicilia and Ileana Steccolini 1. Insights into performance-based budgeting in the public sector: a literature review and a research agenda Sara Giovanna Mauro, Lino Cinquini and Giuseppe Grossi 2. Linking budgeting to results? Evidence about performance budgets in European municipalities based on a comparative analytical model Pieter Bleyen, Daniel Klimovský, Geert Bouckaert and Christoph Reichard 3. The design of performance budgeting processes and managerial accountability relationships Suresh Cuganesan 4. Balancing budget control and flexibility: the central finance agency as 'responsive regulator' Michael Di Francesco and John Alford 5. Fiscal slack, budget shocks, and performance in public organizations: evidence from public schools Abhisekh Ghosh Moulick and Lori L. Taylor 6. Democracy, governmentality and transparency: participatory budgeting in action Maria Isabel Brun-Martos and Irvine Lapsley 7. Budgeting and the construction of entities: struggles to negotiate change in Swedish municipalities Niklas Wällstedt and Roland Almqvist.