This book is the result of a combination of two projects. The first project was a Seminar on Budgeting and Expenditure Control organized periodically by the International Monetary Fund to meet the requirements of senior officials of its member countries. The first part of the book represents the papers contributed to the seminar that was conducted in November-December 1989 at Fund headquarters in Washington, D.C. The second part of the book was organized as a separate project to complement some of the editor's previous work. Professor Jesse Burkhead and the editor organized a symposium of country studies during 1983-84, which was published in Comparative International Budgeting and Finance (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1984). Since then, a need was recognized to supplement it with country studies devoted to the recent developments in government accounting and financial management. Accordingly, countries representing the diverse systems (British Commonwealth, French, centrally planned economics, Nordic, and Latin American) were selected, and authors were requested to contribute papers. To facilitate comparisons, a framework was outlined to the authors; the studies included in this book reflect that framework.