Ireland’s banking crisis, one of the most severe in the OECD area, and the associated economic recession have taken a heavy toll on public finances. Large public deficits have accumulated since 2008 and net public debt, which had been eliminated, has soared once again. The rapid deterioration...

The UK medium-term budgetary framework introduced in 1997 addressed a number of weaknesses of the former regime, notably a bias against capital expenditure and, more generally, poor conditions for longerterm planning adversely affecting central government spending departments, local authorities...

With population ageing setting in sooner and more forcefully than in other OECD countries, Finland needs to reorder its fiscal priorities so as to ensure fiscal sustainability. That will require considerable reform as public spending currently expands vigorously. While GDP growth has slowed from...

This paper highlights some key policy issues regarding the performance of public expenditure and proposes an analytical framework for its assessment. The framework distinguishes three economic objectives of policies in the pursuit of better performance of public expenditure: macroeconomic...

Public spending is very high in Norway, partly reflecting an extensive coverage of the welfare system and ambitious regional development objectives. Moreover, several institutional features contribute to dampening the cost-effectiveness of many public-spending programmes. Abundant oil revenues...