【正文】 fiscal position, rather than minimize spending levels. The result is, therefore, neither an argument for, nor an argument against, topdown budgeting. However, a second result of the study is that plexity is costly, and that an increase of the number of spending dimensions (., more budget items)— and less information, require more voting rounds to reach an equilibrium. As argued above, with a budget consisting of a large number of appropriations, a process where information gathering has an opportunity cost, and where there is a set deadline for submitting and passing the budget, a topdown approach has a higher chance of leading to a fiscally sustainable budget. A topdown approach to the preparation of the budget requires procedures for establishing the aggregate expenditure level and the sectoral allocation of the budget. It also changes the focus and dynamics of the negotiations between the ministry of finance and line ministries. A stylized characterization of the budget process is valuable for analyzing factors that are relevant for how government finances evolve over time. The use of such abstractions of reality should not lose sight of the fact that budgets are shaped in a highly political environment, where there is often pressure to deviate from what is optimal from a collective point of view. Therefore, when designing the institutional framework it bees necessary to find a pragmatic balance between a theoretically stringent model and pragmatic promises needed for the framework to survive. A central feature of the budget process is that decisions are the result of negotiations between numerous players— the president, prime minister, the minister of finance, individual line ministers, agency executives, civil servants, and parliamentarians— and that the balance of fiscal authority has an impact on the oute. Any alteration of the existing order will be acceptable only if a player’s loss of influence in one area is pensated by increased influence in some other area. Strengthening the topdown character of the budget process— which, to a large extent, is intended to address a fragmentation of fiscal powers and the suboptimal collective equilibria this generates— has to take into account the redistribution of roles and responsibilities. From the point of view of the ministry of finance— or in parliament, the finance or budget mittee— influence over the details of the budget is relinquished in return for greater power over aggregate parameters. From the perspective of the line ministries— or the sectoral mittees— a topdown process introduces rigidities and constraints on total expenditure and sectoral allocations, which reduces the scope for expanding sector interests. This may only be acceptable if countervailed by increased flexibility within the respective sector, and if the reform is credible in the sense that the new procedure is binding for all ministries. The single most important decision for the government is to determine the size of government. In a topdown process, this issue is formalized by setting a limit on total expenditure at the very early stage of budget preparation. As discussed by Ljungman (2020), there are arguments for establishing such limits well in advance of the start of the budget process through binding mediumterm aggregate expenditure ceilings. Although not derived directly from a topdown concept, a mediumterm approach to fiscal policy formulation and budgeting is important to ensure that aggregate expenditure limits serve the intended purpose. From one perspectiv