Public financial management enablesgovernment to implement policy. Financial management information systems are a central element of PFM in that they facilitate government financial transactions and subject them to rigorous budgetary controls. Therefore, the adequate use of FMIS systems supports...

The paper provides the first consistently estimated data set on infrastructure investments in low- and middle-income countries. To do so, the authors identify three possible proxies for infrastructure investments: two are variants on gross fixed capital formation from national accounts system...

The control protocols that underlie public expenditure management have direct implications for a government's ability to pursue fiscal discipline and service delivery objectives. The literature recognizes the inherent challenge in balancing control with flexibility and that these two objectives...

Using a new data set comprised of publicly available information, this paper provides cross-country evidence on domestic government spending for human capital in recent years. Creating a measure of social spending that covers the three sectors of health, education, and social protection has...

Colombia has reduced extreme poverty in the past 16 years by almost half, moderate poverty by 22 percentage points, and made more than four million Colombians jump the threshold of multidimensional poverty. However, it remains one of the most unequal countries in the region, after Brazil and...

Improving access to quality education has been the backbone of several development strategies around the world and considerable public resources have been dedicated to achieving this goal. However, one could wonder whether increasing public education expenditure would drive better access to...

The paper employs the Commitment to Equity framework to present a first attempt at a comprehensive fiscal incidence analysis for Ukraine, encompassing the revenue and expenditures components of the fiscal system, including direct and indirect taxes, as well as direct, indirect, and in-kind...

This paper looks at how countries have mobilized additional resources for education and assesses their impact on access and learning outcomes, using the World Bank's new Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling measure. The paper shows that global spending on education has risen significantly over...

This paper analyzes whether fiscal policy in South Asia amplifies or smooths business cycle fluctuations. The paper estimates several econometric models to explore the cyclicality of government spending and tax buoyancy. The findings show that fiscal policy is procyclical in most countries. In...

This paper studies whether budget rigidities affect the probability of countries getting into fiscal distress and reduce the likelihood of governments performing fiscal adjustments. Budget rigidities are constraints that limit the ability of the government to change the size and structure of the...