Public Expenditure

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News

Economic survey of Ireland 2008: Adapting government spending to lower revenue growth

16-Apr-2008

Softening economic growth and the slowdown in the housing market mark a turning point for fiscal policy. Strong revenue growth in earlier years financed a sustained expansion of government spending and some cuts in tax rates, while still allowing the government to run a substantial fiscal surplus. This left the public finances in a healthy state with net government debt declining to a very low level. But this benign picture is changing as growth slows and tax receipts increase more slowly. Public spending growth needs to slow.

Economic Survey of Denmark 2008: Keeping with the targets of the fiscal strategy

19-Feb-2008

In August 2007, the Danish government presented its new medium-term fiscal framework: the 2015 Strategy. It is remarkable for holding up fiscal sustainability as an overarching objective for budgeting and government policies. Nevertheless, clearer mechanisms are needed to prevent spending overruns in regional and local authorities, this report argues.

Economic survey of Chile 2007: Delivering cost-efficient public services in health care, education and housing

26-Nov-2007

The authorities plan to raise budgetary allocations over the medium term for a variety of social programmes, including education, health care and housing. This incremental spending will need to be carried out in a cost efficient manner to make sure that it yields commensurate improvements in social outcomes. Chile’s population health indicators show that it fares relatively well in relation to comparator countries in the OECD area and in Latin America. But this is less so in the case of education, where secondary and tertiary educational attainment remain low.

Public spending efficiency: institutional indicators in primary and secondary education

08-Feb-2007

This paper presents composite indicators of the institutional characteristics of primary and lower secondary educational systems for 26 OECD countries collated from a questionnaire. Economics Department working paper 543 by Frédéric Gonand, Isabelle Joumard and Robert Price.




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