Ghana's development path, although registering past successes, faces a series of current and future challenges. Ghana succeeded inhalving its poverty rate between 1991 and 2016, from 87 percent (US$3.65 per day in 2017 purchasing power parity [PPP]) to about 50 percent of the population,...

Eswatini's fundamental policy challenge is to address the longstanding factors that have constrained growth and hindered broad-based improvements in living standards. Given the state's significant role in the economy, the build-up of macro imbalances, and slow improvements in social indicators,...

The Subnational public finance report is the first in a series of World Bank reports that analyze local and regional government fiscal and financial developments in Croatia. The objective of this work is to offer policy advice on improving public service delivery in a fiscally efficient and...

How can Zimbabwe create the necessary fiscal space to absorb quasi-fiscal expenditures, reverse its upward trend in public debt, and support macroeconomic stability? Zimbabwe is faced with an unsustainable and growing stock of public debt. To service this debt, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)...

Cabo Verde has long been a story of economic success, but growth decelerated in the last decade and has become more volatile - with implications for fiscal performance. Economic growth and social indicators improved significantly after the country's independence from Portugal in 1975, driven by...

This report has been drawn up in accordance with Article 63 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1727 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 November 2018 on the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) (henceforth, "Eurojust Regulation" or "EJR"), replacing and repealing Council...

The UK government is consulting on significant reforms to how funding from central government is allocated between English councils. From 2026-27, there will be a new system for allocating funding between councils, which will take account of new official assessments of councils' spending needs...

This background note provides more detail on the key findings for the health sector from the forthcoming World Bank 2025 Mongolia Public Finance Review. It is intended for policymakers and practitioners who are interested to know more about the efficiency of health spending in Mongolia. It can...

This Public Finance Review (PFR) is the first since 2013, and it complements other World Bank Group advisory support and analytics. The PFR updates the fiscal analysis with data from 2013 through 2023 and expands into areas not previously covered, such as revenues, fiscal risks, and...

This technical assistance (TA) mission on Government Finance Statistics (GFS) and Public Sector Debt Statistics (PSDS) was conducted in Brazil during August 5-16, 2024. The primary objective of the mission was to assist the authorities in their efforts to enhance data quality and strengthen the...

The medium-term budget projection for 2025 to 2029 indicates a persistently high need for fiscal consolidation in Austria's public finances. If the consolidation measures announced by mid-April remain unchanged, the general government deficit would remain close to 4 percent of GDP throughout the...

The connection between public spending and the ambitions of urban elites is a common topic in the historiography of the late Middle Ages. However, it is still unclear how city finances and private capital interacted before the use of sophisticated financial systems of the late 13 th to early 14...

At just under £8 billion, spending on schools and childcare is the second-largest area of public service spending in Scotland, behind spending on health. While councils rather than the Scottish Government itself determine how much to spend on schools, they do so in the context of a funding and...

Kosovo has embarked on a journey of digital transformation, developing digital infrastructure to provide access to households, companies, and educational institutions and modernizing its public finance system through GovTech. Digitalization and GovTech can facilitate Kosovo leapfrogging into...

After three difficult years, a new phase of mining-led growth that began in late 2022 has helped Mongolia emerge from a period of acute macroeconomic imbalances. Despite improvements in fiscal and macroeconomic outcomes, some vulnerabilities persist. Mongolia has experienced repeated boom-bust...

Sri Lanka's fiscal adjustment - nearly 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) since 2021 - has been exceptionally large by both historical and international standards. It has been critical in stabilizing the economy, reducing fiscal imbalances, and restoring macroeconomic stability. With...

Healthcare expenditure growth is a key economic policy issue threatening the sustainability of public finances in advanced economies. This paper examines the determinants of healthcare expenditure in Switzerland using a time-series analysis for the period 1960-2022. Applying a dynamic OLS and an...

This paper examines whether and how national audits affect local fiscal transparency in China. Using panel data from 30 provinces between 2009 and 2018, we find that national audits significantly improve local fiscal transparency after controlling for various economic and institutional factors....

Even now, 35 years after German unification, the economic power and fiscal capacity of the eastern German federal states remain below average. In Germany's system of fiscal federalism, this leads to substantial financial transfers, a fact that repeatedly triggers political debate. Thereby, the...

The Commission Spring 2025 Forecast projects a broadly neutral euro area fiscal stance in 2025, as a contraction in net current spending is largely offset by expanding investment and higher spending financed by RRF grants. This broadly neutral fiscal stance seems appropriate from a macroeconomic...

This paper investigates the causal effect of the term length of political executives on economic policy outcomes. To establish causality, we exploit the staggered adoption of four-year terms for governors across US states, using data for the period 1937-2008. We find that increasing governors'...

The objective of this study is to evaluate the fiscal sustainability of Local Government Units (LGUs) in the Visegrad Group economies (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia; the V4), focusing on three key hypotheses: (1) LGUs in the V4 are involved in so-called Ponzi games; (2) the adverse...

This paper analyzes how (local) tax havens function. Using the German municipal business tax setting as a laboratory, I investigate the characteristics and emergence of local tax havens. I demonstrate that local tax havens are situated in close proximity to large agglomeration areas, while...