Abstract Public finance has been characterized as political economics. Its overall problem must be considered not only in the context of general economics, but also that of political science, public administration, accounting, and management. Among the most neglected of these fields is that of governmental accounting and financial control at the state and local level. As public authority in a democracy must stem from the people upward, the author of this article believes that there is a positive correlation between the availability of information about governmental operations and the quality of government performance. The citizens of a particular government should be able to ascertain where their public dollar comes from, how their officials handle it, and where it goes. They should be able to know how their municipality compares with others. Not only is it advantageous to compare cities, but also it is also beneficial to observe the total outlay of all municipalities for each of the significant functions of government.
T. E. McMillan (1955) studied this question.