Measuring public sector efficiency is not generally straightforward and presents a difficult empirical issue, specifically in terms of adequate measurement of costs and outcomes. This Country Focus attempts to measure the efficiency of public spending in Malta by applying two alternative...

Non-cash benefits can have substantial effects on the distribution of economic welfare. Standard approaches to the inclusion of non-cash benefits in broader measures of resources have failed to take adequate account of the pattern of needs associated with the greater use of health and education...

This paper analyses the public finance performance and the dynamics of government expenditures on education and health in the Kyrgyz Republic in 2007-2010, when the country was hit by the global economic crisis and then by an internal political crisis in 2010. Despite these crisis conditions,...

This paper provides an overview of public expenditures on education and healthcare in Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and some other countries of the former Soviet Union before and during the global financial crisis. Before the crisis, the governments of these countries...

The paper deals with the impact of the global financial crisis on public service delivery - mainly education and healthcare - in Belarus. The pre-crisis period of 2003-2008 was the most prosperous in recent history. These trends resulted in a pretty good fiscal performance. Nevertheless, the...

This paper explores the effects that the global financial crisis of 2008 - 2010 had on the funding and performance of the healthcare and education sectors in the Russian Federation (RF). Both education and healthcare expenditures increased in terms of total general government (GG) spending...

After years of stagnation and political cataclysms, Georgia tried to recover by launching radical economic and political reforms starting in 2004. The results of the reforms appeared to be impressive. The country's GDP has more than doubled; the total volume of bank deposits is five times what it...

This study reviews the impact of the global financial crisis on public service delivery in the Republic of Moldova1. It provides a background of the country's development in the period prior to the crisis (2000 to 2007/2008) and presents the factors which determined the country's fiscal...

Non-cash benefits can have substantial effects on the distribution of economic welfare. Standard approaches to the inclusion of non-cash benefits in broader measures of resources have failed to take adequate account of the pattern of needs associated with the greater use of health and education...

International comparisons of inequality based on measures of disposable income may not be valid if the size and incidence of publicly-provided in kind benefits differ across the countries considered. The benefits that are financed by taxation in one country may need to be purchased out of...