This course is intended to provide grounding in the theoretical and empirical literature of public budgeting. Important early works are complemented by more recent contributions in key topic areas. To cover topics in some depth precludes covering the entire range of the field, but students will be prepared to explore other areas of interest in future work. This preparation will serve doctoral students preparing for a faculty position as well as those who will serve in practice, by providing a core understanding of the literature in the field and the experience necessary to continue to examine new research in this area from a critical perspective. After preparing a literature review, students will develop their own related research idea with hypotheses grounded in the literature and propose a strategy for investigating it: this serves as practice for the dissertation process and can lead to a conference paper. Experience analyzing, discussing and writing about this literature will also contribute to scholarly formation by building skills necessary to teach and participate in conferences.