Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Enhancing the efficiency of education and health spending is a key policy challenge in G7 countries. The paper assesses this efficiency and seeks to establish a link between differences in efficiency across countries and policy and institutional factors. The findings suggest that reforms aimed at increasing efficiency need to take into account the nature and causes of inefficiencies. Inefficiencies in G7 countries mostly reflect lack of cost effectiveness in acquiring real resources, such as teachers and pharmaceuticals. We also find that high wage spending is associated with lower efficiency. In addition, lowering student-teacher ratios is associated with reduced efficiency in the education sector, while immunizations and doctors' consultations coincide with higher efficiency in the health sector. Greater autonomy for schools seems to raise efficiency in secondary education.

Public Finance --- Education: General --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- Health: General --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Education --- Health economics --- Health care spending --- Education spending --- Health --- Expenditure --- Expenditures, Public --- Germany

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Consumption in China is unusually low and has continued to decline as a share of GDP over the past decade. A key policy question is how to reverse this trend, and rebalance growth away from reliance on exports and investment and toward consumption. This paper investigates whether the sizable increase in government social spending in recent years lowered precautionary saving and increased consumption. The main findings are that spending on health, but not education, had an impact on household behavior. The impact, moreover, is large. A one yuan increase in government health spending is associated with a two yuan increase in urban household consumption.

Consumption (Economics) --- Economics --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Macroeconomics: Consumption --- Saving --- Wealth --- Aggregate Factor Income Distribution --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- Public finance & taxation --- Health care spending --- Expenditure --- Consumption --- Income --- Education spending --- Expenditures, Public --- China, People's Republic of

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper uses a dynamic general equilibrium model calibrated to Ugandan data to examine the welfare effects of alternative scenarios of government expenditure and tax financing. Two expenditure types are considered: social spending that affects human capital, and infrastructure expenditures that affect productivity. The paper finds that social expenditures lead to higher economic growth depending on the form of financing; young generations benefit most from social spending financed by consumption taxes; agents do not substitute between human and physical capital as a result of changes in expenditure composition; and improving the productivity of fiscal expenditure is both growth and welfare enhancing.

Labor --- Public Finance --- Taxation --- Fiscal Policy --- National Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Human Capital --- Skills --- Occupational Choice --- Labor Productivity --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- Business Taxes and Subsidies --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- Public finance & taxation --- Labour --- income economics --- Expenditure --- Human capital --- Health care spending --- Consumption taxes --- Education spending --- Taxes --- Expenditures, Public --- Spendings tax --- Uganda

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper examines the relationship between health aid and infant mortality, using data from 118 countries between 1973 and 2004. Health aid has a statistically significant effect on infant mortality: doubling per capita health aid is associated with a 2 percent reduction in the infant mortality rate. For the average country, this implies that increasing per capita health aid by US$1.60 per year is associated with 1.5 fewer infant deaths per thousand births. The estimated effect is small, relative to the targets envisioned by the Millennium Development Goals.

Econometrics --- Public Finance --- Health Policy --- Health: General --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Estimation --- Analysis of Health Care Markets --- Health economics --- Public finance & taxation --- Econometrics & economic statistics --- Health systems & services --- Health --- Health care spending --- Public expenditure review --- Estimation techniques --- Health care --- Expenditures, Public --- Econometric models --- Medical care --- India

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper assesses the relative efficiency and flexibility of public spending in Slovenia compared to the advanced and new EU member states. Spending on health care, education, and social protection is relatively high in Slovenia without achieving correspondingly better outcomes. Inefficiencies appear to stem from the financing mechanisms for social services, institutional arrangements, and the weak targeting of social benefits. In addition, the composition of spending appears to be strongly tilted towards nondiscretionary items that reduce the fiscal room for maneuver. Greater flexibility is needed to facilitate the reallocation of relatively inefficient expenditure into higher priorities. In this manner, medium-term expenditure rationalization can focus on reducing inefficient outlays rather than restraining traditionally flexible components of the budget, such as public investment.

Labor --- Public Finance --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- Education: General --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Education --- Labour --- income economics --- Expenditure --- Health care spending --- Education spending --- Wages --- Expenditures, Public --- Slovenia, Republic of