Public Expenditure in Latin America

Public Expenditure in Latin America PDF Author: Benedict J. Clements
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
This paper examines trends in government spending in Latin America from the mid-1990s to 2006. It also examines key policy issues, including the cyclicality of spending, public investment, public employment, and social expenditures. It finds that primary expenditures have trended upward for the past ten years as a share of GDP, driven by increases in current spending, in particular for social expenditures. Fluctuations in real spending have continued to follow a procyclical pattern. The paper finds that there is substantial scope to improve the efficiency of public investment, public employment, and social spending.

Public Expenditure in Latin America

Public Expenditure in Latin America PDF Author: Benedict J. Clements
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 40

Get Book

Book Description
This paper examines trends in government spending in Latin America from the mid-1990s to 2006. It also examines key policy issues, including the cyclicality of spending, public investment, public employment, and social expenditures. It finds that primary expenditures have trended upward for the past ten years as a share of GDP, driven by increases in current spending, in particular for social expenditures. Fluctuations in real spending have continued to follow a procyclical pattern. The paper finds that there is substantial scope to improve the efficiency of public investment, public employment, and social spending.

Public Expenditure in Latin America

Public Expenditure in Latin America PDF Author: Guy Pierre Pfeffermann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Latin America
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description
Since public spending is often a crucial component of economic activity in any country, this paper looks at the implications of public spending and its effects on poverty in the Latin American context. Specifically, the paper focuses on two areas. First, because overall economic growth is a necessary condition for long-term poverty reduction, the incidence of public spending on the pace of development is of fundamental importance. Consequently, the paper examines what has been the experience in Latin America during the past fifteen to twenty years and how the state's role in the economy evolved. Second, the paper discusses the social incidence of public expenditures and its effects on poverty. The report indicates that achievement of resumed growth is clearly the goal toward which Latin American governments must be striving if more resources are to be freed for attending to the needs of the poor. However, the report goes on to conclude by saying that the only wise course of action is to consider a reform of government social agencies without further delay, rather than to wait for growth to resume before attacking the social problems of the poor.

Government at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2020

Government at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2020 PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264455469
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This third edition of Government at a Glance Latin America and the Caribbean provides the latest available evidence on public administrations and their performance in the LAC region and compares it to OECD countries. This publication includes indicators on public finances and economics, public employment, centres of government, regulatory governance, open government data, public sector integrity, public procurement and for the first time core government results (e.g. trust, inequality reduction).

Better Spending for Better Lives

Better Spending for Better Lives PDF Author: Alejandro Izquierdo
Publisher: Inter-American Development Bank
ISBN: 1597823317
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
How can this puzzle of larger demands and fiscal strengthening be solved? This edition of the development in the Americas (DIA) report focuses precisely on this question. The book suggests that the answer is about fiscal efficiency and smart spending rather than the standard solution of across-the-board spending cuts to achieve fiscal sustainability— sometimes at great cost for society. It is about doing more with less. · Analysis of government spending in Latin America and the Caribbean reveals widespread waste and inefficiencies that could be as large as 4.4 percent of the region’s GDP, showing there is ample room to improve basic services without necessarily spending more resources. · The publication argues against across-the-board cuts. It looks at whether countries spend too much or too little on different priorities, whether they invest enough to ensure a better future, and whether those expenditures make inequality better or worse. · Along with the diagnosis, the report offers several policy recommendations on how to improve the efficiency of government spending.

Government Spending and Income Distribution in Latin America

Government Spending and Income Distribution in Latin America PDF Author: Ricardo Hausmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Chile
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description


Public financial management in Latin America

Public financial management in Latin America PDF Author: Mario Pessoa
Publisher: Inter-American Development Bank
ISBN: 1597822272
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
The efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of public financial management in Latin America is critical for the supervision of public resources, fiscal stability, and sustainable economic development. In recent years, the countries of Latin America have embraced reforms in public financial management and have made many important advances; however, many challenges remain. This book brings together the knowledge and experiences of IMF and IDB staff and representatives from 16 governments in the region to document these reforms, and examines the experiences and lessons learned. It is a valuable resource for those looking at issues in public financial management.

Fiscal Rules and Economic Size in Latin America and the Caribbean

Fiscal Rules and Economic Size in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF Author: Fernando Blanco
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 146481581X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Following the collapse of commodity prices in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in 2014-15, many countries in the region were unable to cushion the impact of the shock in order to experience a more gradual adjustment, to a large extent because they had not built adequate fiscal buffers during the commodities’ windfall from 2010-14. Many LAC countries entered 2020 and the COVID-19 crisis in an even more difficult position, with rising debt and limited fiscal space to smooth the negative impacts of the pandemic and adequately support their economies. Fiscal policy in most LAC countries has been procyclical. Public expenditure and debt levels have expanded in good times and contracted in severe downswings due to insufficient fiscal buffers, making crises deeper. Fiscal rules represent a promising policy option for these and other economies. If well-designed and implemented, they can help build buffers during periods of strong economic performance that will be available during rainy days to smooth economic shocks. This book—which was prepared before the COVID-19 crisis—reviews the performance and implementation of different fiscal rules in the region and world. It provides analytical and practical criteria for policy makers for the design, establishment, and feasible implementation of fiscal rules based on each country's business cycle features, external characteristics, type of shocks faced, initial fiscal conditions, technical and institutional capacities, and political context. While establishing new fiscal rules would not help to attenuate the immediate effects of this pandemic crisis, higher debt levels in the aftermath of COVID-19 will demand rebuilding better and stronger institutional frameworks of fiscal policy in LAC and emerging economies globally. Having stronger fiscal mechanisms that include fiscal rules can help countries prepare for the next crisis and should be on the front burner for policy makers in coming years. The findings and lessons discussed apply to economies of different sizes, with some differences under certain scenarios in terms of the technical design and criteria needed for implementation. In this book, policy makers will find that fiscal rules, if tailored to country characteristics, can work and be an essential fiscal tool for larger and particularly smaller economies.

Budget Rigidity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Budget Rigidity in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF Author: Santiago Herrera
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464815208
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 73

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Book Description
Policy makers in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) often complain that poor fiscal performance in their countries is a result of a high degree of spending rigidity. Despite being a common complaint, the issue has remained largely ignored by the literature because of the lack of adequate measures of rigidity that allow cross-country and time series comparability. This report helps close this gap by introducing a new measure of spending rigidities that can be easily applied to multiple countries. It focuses on the categories of spending that are naturally inflexible--wages, pensions, transfers to subnational governments, and debt service--and separates them into two components: structural and nonstructural. The structural component is determined by economic, demographic, and institutional fundamentals. The nonstructural component is determined by short-run transitory factors associated with business and political cycles. The degree of rigidity of spending is then proxied by the ratio of structural spending to total spending, with a higher value indicating that spending is driven mostly by factors out of the policy makers’ control. This concept of rigidity was applied to 120 countries for the years 2000†“17 and produced several interesting results: • Advanced economies and developing countries in other regions have higher levels of rigidity than countries in LAC. • The sources of rigidity vary by country. • Higher rigidity is associated with higher spending levels, higher tax rates, higher public debt, and lower efficiency of public spending. • Rigidity has pervasive effects on fiscal sustainability, increasing the country’s financing needs and reducing the probability of the country starting a fiscal adjustment. Given these pervasive effects of spending rigidity, the report concludes by discussing several policies to contain the sources of rigidity in the long term, ranging from the importance of deepening the pension reform process to the need of establishing strong fiscal institutions promoting medium-term fiscal planning.

Accountability in Public Expenditures in Latin America and the Caribbean

Accountability in Public Expenditures in Latin America and the Caribbean PDF Author: Omowunmi Ladipo
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821379852
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
Fiscal discipline and public sector efficiency became prominent issues in Latin America and the Caribbean in the late 1980's following external debt crises that troubled many countries in the region. Resolution of the debt crises necessitated a first wave of reforms that largely focused on upgrading legal and regulatory frameworks or improving information systems. Nearly twenty years later progress in matching OECD practices and performance in public financial management and procurement has been uneven and has been one of the factors that impeded higher growth and competitiveness in Latin America and the Caribbean. Countries such as Chile, Brazil and Costa Rica with relatively good performance, in this respect, have shown what other countries in the region can do and how they would benefit. Increased globalization, seemingly intractable issues of income inequality, the onset of the recent global financial crises and the emergence of an assertive middle class that demands better governance, are all reasons why Latin America and the Caribbean governments should closely examine incomplete financial management and procurement reform programs and embark on trajectories that will improve their performance and be better responsive to the needs of their citizens. This book sets out, based on more than a decade of World Bank diagnostics, key areas that remain to be addressed by governments in the Latin America and the Caribbean region to underpin sustainable arrangements that deliver efficient and effective services, which are accountable to citizens. Success will have the important additional benefit of serving to notify international financial markets of the integrity of their stewardship function.

Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2018

Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2018 PDF Author: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
Publisher: United Nations
ISBN: 9210586212
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
This edition of Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean coincides with an important milestone: the thirtieth anniversary of the Regional Seminar on Fiscal Policy organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Over the past 30 years, this seminar has become a key fixture on the agenda of fiscal policy events in the region.Throughout these three decades, the successive editions of the seminar have served as a forum for national authorities, tax experts and officials from international organizations to discuss the performance, challenges and opportunities of fiscal policy,and it has enhanced policy design and management in the individual countries.