Financial Planning in the Public Sector and the News Vendor Problem
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to study the phenomenon of lapsed funding that occurs within the public sector using the framework of the News Vendor Problem. Under this framework we observe that lapsed funding is a natural outcome of the planning system when the financial manager is trying to maximize value added. Centralizing control of operating budgets of homogeneous units is shown to reduce lapsed funds and improve overall performance.
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