Abstract:

Previous studies showed that the Israeli Ministry of Finance has greater power than finance ministries in most developed countries. The article describes three modes of policy analysis that are used in the Budget Department or on its behalf: in-house work, interministerial committees, and public committees. An examination of the three modes of policy analysis indicates that the major weakness of policy analysis is more evident in the in-house work of the Budget Department, which does not systematically evaluate the expected effects of policy proposals on benefits and costs. The interministerial committees or the public committees do not work according to a fixed methodology, and the quality of their analytical work is therefore arbitrary, depending on the people heading the committee. A tradition of presenting a menu of alternatives to policymakers has not been found in all three modes of policy analysis that were researched here. In addition, the decision rule according to which the