Summary Using the case of Russia's regions, this paper extends the literature on public sector efficiency in three directions: an attempt to better understand differences in public sector efficiency through the study of subnational governments in one country; the first examination of public...

The impact of credit to government on three aspects of banking sector performance - its deepening over time, profitability, and efficiency - is examined for 142 countries. Country regressions suggest a sizeable negative effect of credit to government on bank deepening in developing countries,...

This article revisits whether budget deficits affect interest rates, and broadens the literature by examining whether financial globalization has changed this relationship. A structural model of interest determination is extended to account for the fact that official capital flows are determined...

We extend the literature on budget deficits and interest rates in three ways: we examine both advanced and emerging economies and for the first time a large emerging market panel; explore interactions to explain some of the heterogeneity in the literature; and apply system Generalized Method of...

We use a new dataset of de jure measures of trade, capital account, product market, and domestic financial regulation for 91 countries from 1973 to 2005 to test Rajan and Zingales’s (2003) interest group theory of financial development. In line with the theory, we find strong evidence that...

Projections of age-related public expenditure growth have raised widespread concerns about fiscal sustainability. This paper examines how total expenditure would develop under four policy rules on public expenditure growth. Some simple arithmetic of expenditure, GDP, and population is reviewed...

A number of uncertainties about long-term expenditure commitments in industrial countries are examined: (i) the assumptions underlying the projections, (ii) the potential to further reduce non-age-related expenditures, (iii) the implicitly assumed absence of “shocks,” and (iv) the potential...

We examine the role of public debt in financial development. The literature has highlighted its supportive role through providing collateral and benchmark. We contrast this "safe asset" view to a "lazy banks" view: developing banking sectors that lend mainly to the public sector may develop more...

Cost-efficiency, scale efficiency, and productivity change are estimated by data envelopment analysis; and cost-efficiency is regressed on explanatory variables. No evidence is found for average productivity responding to deregulation over the period studied. State-owned banks are found to be...

Summary We compile the first large cross-country panel dataset of public sector performance and efficiency, encompassing 114 countries on all income levels from 1980 to 2004, with about 1,800 country-year observations for the education sector and about 900 observations for health. We regress...