Hello! I am curious how a city (or state or federal government) might look at spending across different departments and programs in order to allocate funds more effectively. For instance, transportation to/from schools, hospitals, and other clinics might show up in multiple places in a budget.
Interested in a case study demonstrating how the interactions could be examined comprehensively - and appropriate methodologies - to study linking performance measures and funding across variety of departments.
Dear Charlotte,
following my background on production engineering I will tackle your question by addressing the methodology you might use to study the case you described.
One of the methods you might use is system dynamics, which allows you to model a problem where different entities affect each other behavior (it can be a way for you to model the interactions comprehensively, once being comprehended).
I did not post a file for you on system dynamics because you may find plenty of sources explaining system dynamics with a different level of details and application purposes.
In general, this simulation technique is widely used to as a decision support tool in policy making. Therefore, as you might guess, there are research papers which shows the adoption of it with the purpose of fund allocation. The red line among such research works is to test the model for several different policies (or programmes) which reflects different budget allocations.
Consequently, my answer does not reply to the question on how to comprehend the interrelations among the different actors or how to generate fund-allocation alternatives, but it yet tackles the decision-making process embedded in the cases you want to study.
To provide you with an example I have attached a paper on fund allocation for a transportation network done through system dynamics. This case is far away from yours but yet valuable for the understanding of the method.
Best regards
Ilaria
Dear Charlotte,
In most countries, the so-called "Classification of Functions of Government" (often briefly referred to as COFOG), issued by the UN, is used with more or less rigour. If you go to the fourth level, there is a fairly detailed description of what is included. Now the rigour varies COFOG is applied varies a lot between the jurisdictions. Many only go to the level of institutions, e.g. hospitals, and if the hospital provides the transportation service, it falls into "health". COFOG is basically a subset of the SNA.
As far as I know, in the US the COFOG classifications are not so well known and therefore probably also not applied with rigour.
I hope this helps.
Best, Andreas
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Social Psychology
- Attitude