We provide experimental evidence on how fiscal news shapes households' expectations and spending behavior. Using a new survey of ~11,000 Korean individuals linked to automatically collected high-frequency spending data, we elicit respondents' fiscal and macroeconomic beliefs and randomly provide...

This paper investigates how external shocks propagate through fiscal transmission mechanisms in a commodity-dependent economy within a dynamic macroeconomic framework. The study contributes to the literature on macroeconomic fluctuations by examining the interaction between external revenue...

In this paper, we analyze the impacts of financial innovation and financial deepening on the economic growth of 14 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1995 to 2023. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach and error correction model (ECM) were used to assess short- and long-run...

This paper examines the effect of women’s political empowerment on public spending efficiency in developing countries. Using a large panel of 126 developing countries over 1995–2021, the paper constructs public spending efficiency scores based on Stochastic Frontier Analysis, capturing...

Despite Niger’s relatively high public spending on agriculture compared to regional peers, the impact on sector productivity and growth has been limited and uneven. This report, an agricultural public expenditure review combined with an analysis of price incentives for crop and livestock...

In Morocco, the increasing public expenditure on essential sectors, such as education, does not always lead to improved outcomes, highlighting a significant gap between resource allocation and quality enhancement. This study examines the efficiency of public expenditure in education, health, and...

Attaining education sustainability is indeed important as it ensures the overall economic sustainability of countries and it is directly connected with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-4). However, the literature evidence on the determinants of education sustainability is...

Ceremonies are central to social life, yet the pressure to conform to community spending norms traps households in a collectively suboptimal equilibrium, imposing severe financial burdens. Using nationally and regionally representative longitudinal data from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, we...

Japanís prolonged ZLB period alongside substantial debt accumulation makes it a compelling laboratory for testing whether fiscal multipliers differ across normal and ZLB periods. This paper investigates this question using a sign- and zero-restricted TVP-VAR that jointly identifies fiscal rules...

The purpose of this note is to help mainstream fiscal multipliers in PFRs. It aims to provide guidance for estimating fiscal multipliers in developing countries by leveraging the World Bank’s macroeconomic and fiscal model (MFMod) to generate country-specific estimates. While other methods are...

The objective of the assessment is to take stock of the performance of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR’s) public finance management (PFM) system, assess progress since the 2018 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment, and inform the development of the Lao...

The Public Finance Review (PFR) for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) aims to support policymakers in strengthening medium-term fiscal frameworks and aligning fiscal policy with sustainable and inclusive growth. Against the backdrop of BiH’s highly decentralized governance structure, heightened...

This paper assesses the fiscal and distributional effects of personal income tax expenditures in Portugal using EUROMOD and 2022 EU-SILC microdata. We compare the 2023 tax-benefit system with a counterfactual scenario in which tax expenditures are removed to estimate first-round impacts. We find...

Using cross-country data for 167 countries with broad post-World War II coverage and historical extensions to earlier periods, we quantify how deficits, taxes, and civilian spending respond to increases and decreases in military spending. On average, deficit financing dominates: a 1 percent-age...

There has been considerable recent debate about the terms of 'Plan 2' student loans, which were issued to 11 cohorts of English undergraduate university students: those who started their courses between academic years 2012/13 and 2022/23.1 We have written before about how these student loans...

Public services play an important role in supporting households' well-being and their members' life chances. This is especially true for low- and middle-income households, for whom the in-kind services received represent a larger share of overall consumption and for whom equivalent private...

Public services play an important role in supporting households' well-being and their residents' life chances. This is especially true for low- and middle-income households, for whom the in-kind services received represent a larger share of overall consumption, and for whom equivalent private...

We assessed whether health spending of local government units in the Philippines is sufficient to deliver mandated primary health care (PHC) services under a devolved system, how PHC spending varies with fiscal capacity, and whether increased intergovernmental transfers following the...

The funding available to a government determines the choices available to it - including what public services and benefits to provide, whether to charge co-payments for services, and if so at what level. Such choices especially affect households on low and middle incomes, and particularly those...

The central contention of this report is that the UK fiscal framework has some desirable features but is not delivering good outcomes. We are in a bad equilibrium. The UK's fiscal framework is based around a set of pass-fail, numerical fiscal rules. The fiscal debate is overly fixated on the...

This public sector pay mission scoped the available data and presents an indicative baseline and scenarios for reform. There is limited room for major increases in personnel spending and careful prioritization is needed. If implemented in 2025, adjustments to pension benefits, expanded military...

This paper estimates the macroeconomic effects of fiscal consolidations in sub-Saharan Africa using a newly constructed narrative dataset of discretionary fiscal policy actions for 14 countries over 1990–2024. The dataset, documented in Abdel-Latif et. al. (2025), identifies fiscal measures...

This report examines Madagascar’s public agricultural expenditure from 2013 to 2022 and incorporates recent policy changes as of mid-2024. Its findings and recommendations aim to help the government allocate scarce public resources more effectively for better targeting and outcomes. The study...

Agriculture is a cornerstone of Uzbekistan’s economy, accounting for 24.3 percent of GDP, 23.9 percent of employment, and 20.4 percent of exports in 2023.2 It plays a vital role in reducing rural poverty, ensuring food security, and mitigating climate change risks. Despite its importance, the...

Environmental challenges increasingly shape political discourses across Europe, yet their influence on actual environmental governance remains unclear. This paper examines the political economy mechanisms linking environmental change, party platforms, and the decentralisation of environmental...

The adoption of NATO's new 5% defence spending target reflects shifting US strategic priorities and places heavy demands on European allies. This article assesses whether European NATO members can realistically meet this target, combining evidence on past and projected military spending, fiscal...

For over a century now, one of the central debates of economic policy has been around fiscal policy. Taxation and government spending have been a feature of most political campaigns, with one (more vocal) side claiming that taxation chokes economic growth and benefits special interests, while...

Cultural participation is a catalyst for urban vitality and transformation, characterising central-periphery dy namics. At the frontline of public endowment to the arts, cities' spending plays a major role in sustaining cultural vibrancy in a territory. People's cultural participation is,...

The Scottish Budget and Spending Review published on 13 January set detailed spending plans for 2026-27, alongside higher-level plans for the following two years for day-to-day (resource) spending and the following three years for investment (capital) spending. Understandably, the Scottish...

Ceremonies are central to social life, yet the pressure to conform to community spending norms traps households in a collectively suboptimal equilibrium, imposing severe financial burdens. Using nationally and regionally representative longitudinal data from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, we...