Summary Using panel data from 118 developing countries in 1971-2000, this paper explores the channels linking social spending, human capital, and growth and compares the effects of alternative economic policy interventions. With separate modeling for education and health capital, explicit...

This paper examines the factors affecting the persistence of fiscal consolidation in 25 emerging market countries during 1980-2001. It proposes a new approach for defining spells of fiscal consolidation. The results indicate that the probability of ending a fiscal adjustment is affected by the...

This study assesses effects of expenditure composition and other variables on the duration of fiscal adjustment episodes in a sample of 29 developing countries. Using survival analysis, the study finds that expenditure composition, size of the fiscal consolidation, and past performance on fiscal...

We examine the short- and long-term movements of government spending relative to output in 51 countries. We find that in the short term, the main components of government spending increase with output in about half of the sample countries, with some variation across spending categories and...

This paper discusses issues relating to the domestic pricing of petroleum in oil-producing countries. It finds that in most major oil-exporting countries, government policies keep domestic prices below free-market levels, resulting in implicit subsidies that equaled 3.0 percent of GDP, on...