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...

Using panel data from 120 developing countries from 1975 to 2000, this paper explores the direct and indirect channels linking social spending, human capital, and growth in a system of equations. The paper finds that both education and health spending have a positive and significant direct...

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...

The paper addresses one of the key features and expectations of thePRGF: are budgets more pro-poor and pro-growth? Relying on abundant data gatheredfrom numerous countries, the authors show that indeed the composition of bothbudgeted and actual public spending is shifting towards...

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 paper investigates the political and economic determinants of successful fiscal adjustment in 25 emerging market economies from 1980 to 2001. The results show that large and back-loaded fiscal adjustments have the highest likelihood of success. Fiscal consolidations based on expenditure...

This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal adjustment and real GDP growth in a panel of 26 transition economies during 1992–2001. It finds a positive and statistically significant relationship between fiscal adjustment and real GDP growth that is robust to different model...

This paper assesses the effects of fiscal consolidations associated with public debt reduction on medium-term output growth during periods of private debt deleveraging. The analysis covers 107 countries and 79 episodes of public debt reduction driven by discretionary fiscal adjustments during...

In late 1999 the IMF established the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) to integrate the objectives of poverty reduction and growth more fully into its operations for the poorest countries, and to base these operations on national poverty reduction strategies prepared by the country...