This paper uses new cross-country data to assess the relationship between public spending on health care and the health status of the poor. Data are drawn from two sources: (i) existing data on health status by income quintile tabulated from demographic health surveys in 44 countries; and (ii)...

This paper considers the potential for improvements in forestry revenue management to complement other efforts toward sustainable forest management and to strengthen domestic resource mobilization. It describes forestry management as an extreme version of a classic principal-agent problem, which...

In the last two decades more than 120 countries have adopted a multiyear budget process (Medium-Term Framework, or MTF) that enables the central government to set multiyear fiscal targets. This paper analyzes a newly-collected dataset of worldwide MTF adoptions during 1990–2008. It exploits...

Financial crises in developing and transition countries have often proven disruptive to policies and programmes due to procyclical trends in government spending growth. Given the importance and significant proportion of public budgets devoted to education and health, cuts in government...