Resumen de Incrementalism and Exogenous Factors in Spanish National Budgeting

José Caamaño Alegre, Santiago Lago Peñas

• This paper studies the impact of both incrementalism and exogenous factors in Spanish national budgeting beginning in the late eighties. After a survey of related literature, we adopt an approach based on a distinction between budget-total incrementalism and within-budget incrementalism. We combine several statistical tools in order to avoid the shortcomings of the Davis, Dempster and Wildavsky�s econometric method and its extensions in the 1970s and 1980s literature. Results suggest that incrementalism explains the evolution of budgeted figures within relatively narrow bands, but additional variables are needed to explain budgettotal change dynamics and within-budget departures from such bands.