Punctuated or incremental? Macao’s budget change and governance before and after the handover

As an export-oriented and developed micro-economy, Macao’s government budget has its own unique characteristics. Since 1999, Macao’s return to China represents a unique scenario of institutional and governance change from separation to unity of sovereignty and governance. This transition is different from the change of political regime, leadership turnover, and ruling party replacement on which the current literature focuses. By collecting budget expenditure data from 1976 to 2022, this study describes and compares Macao’s budgets, including total budget, operating budget, capital budget, and functional budget, to understand if different types of budgets have experienced incremental change or punctuated changes before and after the handover. The study finds that the total budget, capital budget, and most functional budgets show more incrementalism after the handover than before the handover, while the operating budget is more punctuated compared to the colonial administration budget.