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From a quantitative survey of 124 local authority organizations, at the commune and inter-commune level, this paper proposes a typology of the costing systems that they use. Three key pieces of information emerge from the survey results: the existence of three possible approaches for implementing a costing system (top-down, bottom-up, and a combination of the two); a shift toward more contingent costing methods; and a decline in the previously favored system of management accounting, predominant in local authority organizations twenty years ago.