Toward co-creation: institutional arrangements in climate participatory budgeting

Purpose Few analyses evaluate how institutional arrangements for climate participatory budgeting (CPB) lead to co-creation, especially in the context of the United States. This study examines two questions: (1) To what extent do public finance institutions, such as climate-related earmarked funding mechanisms and climate budgeting and investment platforms, facilitate co-creation; and (2) How do institutional environments shape these co-creation dynamics in climate finance and budgeting? Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative case study design covering 2018–2025. Data include budget records, participatory budgeting committee and City Council meeting minutes, local news coverage, and online public discourse. The analysis integrates textual analysis and lagged similarity analysis using term frequency-inverse document frequency weighting with process tracing to examine temporal relationships between public framing and institutional response. Findings It finds an inherent institutional dilemma: institutional arrangements that secure fiscal accountability may simultaneously constrain flexibility and limit the redistribution of decision-making authority required for transformative co-creation. The findings also highlight the importance of institutional context in shaping co-creation dynamics. Originality/value The study contributes to public budgeting and finance scholarship by demonstrating how climate participatory budgeting (CPB), embedded in rigid fiscal systems, generates procedural responsiveness without redistributing budgetary authority. Methodologically, it integrates fiscal analysis with longitudinal text-based process tracing to identify how community input is incorporated, filtered, and constrained within the policy cycle.