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Business and Economics > Public Finance

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 10 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Education: Government Policy x
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Cover Selected Issues Papers
Using Digitalization to Enhance Public Finance in Kosovo: Republic of Kosovo
Carolina Bloch
,
Mariano Moszoro
,
Mona Wang
,
Frank van Brunschot
, and
Yasemin Hurcan
Kosovo has embarked on a journey of digital transformation, developing digital infrastructure to provide access to households, companies, and educational institutions and modernizing its public finance system through GovTech. Digitalization and GovTech can facilitate Kosovo leapfrogging into advanced infrastructure and public service delivery. While Kosovo has achieved significant milestones—including nearly universal internet coverage and the comprehensive front-end e-Kosova portal—unconnected systems, relatively high consumer prices for digital inclusion, limited digital skills, and cybersecurity risks hinder the full realization of digital benefits.
Keywords:
Digital Transformation; GovTech Solutions; Public Finance Management; E-Government; Cybersecurity; maturity index; using digitalization; cybersecurity risk; potential of GovTech adoption; Digitalization; Public employment; Cyber risk; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Struggling to Make the Grade: A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Weak Outcomes of South Africa’s Education System
Mr. Montfort Mlachila
and
Tlhalefang Moeletsi
While South Africa has made significant improvements in basic and tertiary education enrollment, the country still suffers from significant challenges in the quality of educational achievement by almost any international metric. The paper finds that money is clearly not the main issue since the South Africa’s education budget is comparable to OECD countries as a percent of GDP and exceeds that of most peer sub-Saharan African countries in per capita terms. The main explanatory factors are complex and multifaceted, and are associated with insufficient subject knowledge of some teachers, history, race, language, geographic location, and socio-economic status. Low educational achievement contributes to low productivity growth, and high levels of poverty, unemployment, and inequality. Drawing on the literature, the paper sketches some policy considerations to guide the debate on what works and what does not.
Keywords:
WP; basic education; education system; learner outcome; primary education; government spending; teacher union; educational attainment; quality of education; education reforms; South Africa; performance pay; pupil-teacher ratio; teacher pay system; learner performance; teacher absenteeism; teacher training; Education spending; Income inequality; Africa; East Asia
Cover IMF Working Papers
Improving the Efficiency and Equity of Public Education Spending: The Case of Moldova
Hui Jin
,
La-Bhus Fah Jirasavetakul
, and
Baoping Shang
This paper, using Moldova as an example, presents a systematic approach to assess the efficiency and equity of public education spending, identify sources of inefficiencies and inequality, and formulate potential reform options. The analytical framework combines international benchmarking with country-specific analysis—such as microeconomic analysis based on household survey data—and can provide important insights into diagnosing and reforming education systems. The analysis finds significant scope to improve both efficiency and equity of the education sector in Moldova. Potential reform measures include further consolidating the oversized school network, reducing overstaffing, and better targeting government subsidies. The current remuneration policy could also be improved to attract high quality teachers and incentivize performance.
Keywords:
WP; public education; labor market; wage level; IMF staff calculation; public expenditure; wage premium; public education spending; spending efficiency; inequality; education reform; public spending; wage bill; Mincer wage regression; private sector; base pay; wage deficit; reservation wage; resource allocation; wage spending; pay grade; Education spending; Wages; Eastern Europe; Middle East; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Benchmarking Social Spending Using Efficiency Frontiers
Mr. Javier Kapsoli
and
Iulia Ruxandra Teodoru
Developing and low-income economies face the challenge of increasing public spending to address sizeable infrastructure and social gaps while simultaneously restoring the fiscal discipline weakened to countervail the effect of the global recession. Increasing the efficiency of social spending could be the key policy to address the dilemma as it allows the optimization of the existing resources by reducing spending inefficiencies. This paper quantifies the efficiency gap in the health and education sectors for a large sample of developing and emerging countries and proposes measures to reduce these gaps for the specific cases of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Keywords:
WP; public spending; wage; Honduras; spending; Guatemala; wage bill; Health; education; efficiency; developing countries; low-income countries; technical efficiency; efficiency saving; public spending in education; social spending trend; efficiency score; Education spending; Health care spending; Central America
Cover Technical Notes and Manuals
Expenditure Assessment Tool
Miss Candice Y Liu
and
Ms. Mercedes Garcia-Escribano
This manual presents the Expenditure Assessment Tool (EAT), which helps assess expenditures for any specific country. EAT uses the commonly available software program Excel and has been designed by Expenditure Policy Division at Fiscal Affairs Department at IMF. The information EAT provides can be very useful in the evaluation of government spending and in the identification of areas where there may be room to increase spending efficiency or rationalize spending. The evaluation is done through benchmarking of spending—levels, composition and outcomes—against regional and income comparators. The focus is on both the economic and functional classification of expenditures. The application of the tool to spending in Argentina is presented as an illustration.
Keywords:
TNM; spending; country; GDP; spending reform; Public expenditure review; spending efficiency; benchmarking; IMF FAD Expenditure Assessment Tool; wage bill; spending increase; IMF FAD government Compensation; health expenditure metrics; reflecting spending growth; public health expenditure; investment spending; tax subsidy; wage differential; income group; Health care spending; Education spending; Total expenditures; South America
Cover IMF Working Papers
From Expenditure Consolidation to Expenditure Efficiency: Addressing Public Expenditure Pressures in Lithuania
Mr. David Coady
and
Ms. Nan Geng
This paper reviews public expenditure in Lithuania to identify areas where deeper structural reforms may be warranted to improve spending efficiency and contain future spending pressures. The analysis benchmarks spending in Lithuania against other European countries focusing on spending levels, spending composition, and spending outcomes, and for both economic and functional spending classifications. While recent expenditure consolidation efforts have kept public spending among the lowest in Europe, a transition from broad-based measures to more structural measures will be required: to ensure that low spending levels remain sustainable, to address poor social outcomes such as high inequality and poor health and education outcomes, and to efficiently and equitably contain spending pressures arising from an ageing population.
Keywords:
WP; pay; spending; base wage; EU average; wage bill; public expenditure review; spending efficiency; equity; benchmarking; Lithuania; European countries; consolidation measure; employment level; bill reduction; disability benefit; Health care; Wages; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Estimation of Drivers of Public Education Expenditure: Baumol’s Effect Revisited
Manabu Nose
This paper analyzes drivers of rising per-pupil public education spending, including Baumol’s “cost disease” effect. Higher wages paid to teachers contributed significantly to the increase in per-pupil spending over the past decades. Empirical analyses using a large dataset of advanced and developing economies show that the contribution of Baumol’s effect was much smaller than impled by theory. Rather, the spending inccrease reflects rising wage premiums paid for teachers in excess of market wages, especially in middle-income countries. The strong wage premium effect suggests that institutional characteristics that govern teachers’ wage setting are key determinants of education expenditure.
Keywords:
WP; public education; Public education expenditure; Baumol’s effect; wage premium; institutions; teacher-pupil ratio; growth assumption; premium effect; Education spending; Wages; Capital spending; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
What is Behind Latin America’s Declining Income Inequality?
Ms. Evridiki Tsounta
and
Anayochukwu Osueke
Income inequality in Latin America has declined during the last decade, in contrast to the experience in many other emerging and developed regions. However, Latin America remains the most unequal region in the world. This study documents the declining trend in income inequality in Latin America and proposes various reasons behind this important development. Using a panel econometric analysis for a large group of emerging and developing countries, we find that the Kuznets curve holds. Notwithstanding the limitations in the dataset and of cross-country regression analysis more generally, our results suggest that almost two-thirds of the recent decline in income inequality in Latin America is explained by policies and strong GDP growth, with policies alone explaining more than half of this total decline. Higher education spending is the most important driver, followed by stronger foreign direct investment and higher tax revenues. Results suggest that policies and to some extent positive growth dynamics could play an important role in lowering inequality further.
Keywords:
WP; income; higher-income household; income gap; income share; inequality data used.; Income inequality; Latin America; Gini; emerging economies; Kuznets; inequality data; inequality panel Regression; world income distribution; regression analysis; inequality decline; Income distribution; Personal income; Education spending; Caribbean
Cover IMF Working Papers
A Comparative Analysis of Government Social Spending Indicators and Their Correlation with Social Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa
Mr. Paulo Silva Lopes
This paper analyzes trends in social indicators in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and their correlation with the three most widely used scaled measures of government social spending: in per capita terms, as a percentage of GDP, and as a percentage of total government expenditure. On the basis of a regional data set matching health and education outcome indicators with government spending on those sectors, cross-country statistical analysis shows spending both per capita and as a percent of GDP to be of some relevance to social outcomes, but not the share of social spending in budgetary allocations. The policy implications concern not only governments in the region, but also the international donor community for its role in supporting social programs in SSA.
Keywords:
WP; spending; government; sc; Sub-Saharan Africa; social expenditure; social indicators; government expenditure; social development; social policy; international assistance; poverty; allocation share; spending indicator; comparison bias; spending regressors' coefficient; Education spending; Total expenditures; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Working Paper Summaries (WP/94/77 - WP/94/147)
International Monetary Fund
Authors of Working Papers are normally staff members of the Fund or consultants, although on occasion outside authors may collaborate with a staff member in writing a paper. The views expressed in the Working Papers or their summaries are, however, those of the authors and should not necessarily be interpreted as representing the views of the Fund. Copies of individual Working Papers and information on subscriptions to the annual series of Working Papers may be obtained from IMF Publication Services, International Monetary Fund, 700 19th Street, Washington, D.C. 20431. Telephone: (202) 623-7430 Telefax: (202) 623-7201 This compilation of summaries of Working Papers released during July-December 1994 is being issued as a part of the Working Paper series. It is designed to provide the reader with an overview of the research work performed by the staff during the period.
Keywords:
WP; country; capital; market; economy; reform; panel data base; environment tax; GDP ratio; training-supply externality; industry trade; Real exchange rates; Human capital; Inflation; Asset prices; Stock markets; Europe; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Central and Eastern Europe; Eastern Europe