Benedict S. Jimenez

Benedict S. Jimenez is Associate Professor of Public Management and Policy in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. His teaching focuses on public budgeting and finance, public management, and quantitative analysis. His research examines the institutional, financial, and management dimensions of state and local public service provision. Specifically, he has explored four distinct but inter-related areas of inquiries: 1) How public management practices and processes (performance management, strategic planning, decision processes and structures) shape the capacity of state and local governments to improve their fiscal health; 2) How citizens influence local budget decisions and outcomes through participatory administrative processes and direct democracy; 3) How local political institutions (government form, electoral systems, term limits) and fiscal institutions (tax and expenditure limits, balanced budget requirements, and debt limits) shape the incentives faced by local decision makers, and determine fiscal retrenchment strategies and outcomes; and 4) How the structure of the state and local public sector (fiscal decentralization and local government fragmentation) and the relationship among different types and levels of governments (inter-local and inter-governmental competition and cooperation) influence fiscal discipline.

In the last five years, he has employed different data gathering methods—ranging from a national survey of city officials, the collection and coding of city budget documents and audit reports, and analysis of raw census data—to assemble a comprehensive dataset on municipal public finance especially during and after the 2007-2009 Great Recession. This research project has resulted in several sole-authored articles published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Public Administration, Public Management Review, American Review of Public Administration, International Public Management Journal, Urban Affairs Review, Public Budgeting and Finance, and Public Finance Review, among others. Benedict has presented the results of his research in different national and international conferences of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, American Political Science Association, Public Management Research Association, and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.