The Estonian fiscal position is much better than in many OECD countries, the country stands out for having a rather lean government sector and the authorities are striving for efficient use of existing resources. Both healthcare and local government were particularly hit the by the decrease of...

This paper analyses the main features of Sweden’s public expenditure and addresses some key policy issues. Public spending is high relative to GDP, reflecting the wide support for the Swedish welfare state. The institutional framework within which spending decisions are made has both strengths...

This paper analyses the main features of Iceland’s public expenditure and addresses some key policy issues. While overall public spending is not high compared with Iceland’s Nordic neighbours, other OECD countries have made more progress in reining it in. Budget consolidation efforts and...

The Czech fiscal position is generally sound and policy making is prudent. However, the fiscal framework was not strong enough to contain spending in the upturn and it would benefit from independent budget oversight. An anchor for the fiscal policy would be helpful, in the form of an explicit...

The main features of China’s current sub-national finance arrangements date back to the 1994 tax reform. China has a multi-level government structure that shares national tax revenues through a system of tax sharing and transfers, and divides spending assignments and responsibilities. Local...

This paper discusses ways of strengthening the competitive environment in order to help boost productivity performance in various sectors of the Danish economy. It looks at a number of indicators of the strength of competition — including price levels, industrial concentration and product...

Vigorous product market competition plays a central role in bolstering productivity growth. Sweden has strengthened competition legislation and deregulated a number of sectors, including electricity, telecommunications and parts of transport, over the past 10 to 15 years. This paper examines the...

The UK medium-term budgetary framework introduced in 1997 addressed a number of weaknesses of the former regime, notably a bias against capital expenditure and, more generally, poor conditions for longerterm planning adversely affecting central government spending departments, local authorities...

Health services are largely tax-financed in the United Kingdom and account for 14 per cent of general government spending. This paper analyses how the National Health Service (NHS) has been dealing with the associated expenditure pressures in the pre-1990 set-up and during the “quasi-market”...

This paper highlights some key policy issues regarding the performance of public expenditure and proposes an analytical framework for its assessment. The framework distinguishes three economic objectives of policies in the pursuit of better performance of public expenditure: macroeconomic...