There is scant empirical economic research regarding the way that Latin American governments efficiently allocate their spending across different functions to achieve higher growth. While most papers restrict their analysis to the size of government, much less is known about the composition of...

This paper studies whether changes in the composition of public spending affect the macroeconomic consequences of fiscal consolidations. Based on a sample of 44 developing countries and 26 advanced economies during 1980-2019, results show that while fiscal consolidations tend to be on average,...

Spending elasticities measure the reaction of different government spending components to the business cycle. They are important inputs for fiscal forecasts, and they are particularly relevant in the context of European Union (EU) fiscal rules, as elasticity estimates enter the estimation of...

The goal of this paper is to understand better, at the empirical level, how public spending contributes to growth by focusing on both the level and composition of public spending, in connection to the dynamics of GDP per capita growth. It attempts to answer two specific questions: (a) What are...

This paper complements the cross-country approach by examining the correlates of growth acceleration in per capita gross domestic product around "significant" public expenditure episodes by reorganizing the data around turning points, or events. The authors define a growth event as an increase...

The authors describe the main trends of Brazil's fiscal policy during the past decade and analyze (1) the ability to raise the primary surplus in response to external shocks, (2) the pro-cyclical nature of fiscal policy, and (3) the long-run impact of government expenditure composition and...