Several of the transition economies are devolving fiscal authority to subnational governments at a time when it is also important to consolidate fiscal policy. This can be problematic because, without appropriate care, the central government''s ability to determine the level and structure of...

Demands for ramping up health expenditures are at an all-time high. Countries' needs for additional health resources include responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, closing gaps in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal in health in most emerging and developing countries, and serving an ageing...

This paper estimates the impact of public spending on the poor''s health status in over 70 countries. It provides evidence that the poor have significantly worse health status than the rich and that they are more favorably affected by public spending on health care. An important new result is...

This paper assesses the relative efficiency of government spending on health care and education in Croatia by using the so-called Data Envelopment Analysis. The analysis finds evidence of significant inefficiencies in Croatia''s spending on health care and education, related to inadequate cost...

Government intervention to correct market failures is often accompanied by government failures and corruption. This is no more evident than in social sectors that are characterized by significant market failures and government intervention. However, the impact of corruption on the public...

Using data for a sample of developing and transition countries, this paper estimates the relationship between government spending on health care and education, and social indicators. Unlike previous studies, where social indicators are used as proxies for the unobservable health and education...

To shed light on the possible scarring effects from Covid-19, this paper studies the economic effects of five past pandemics using local projections on a sample of fifty-five countries over 1990-2019. The findings reveal that pandemics have detrimental medium-term effects on output,...