IMF Working Papers

Benchmarking Social Spending Using Efficiency Frontiers

By Javier Kapsoli, Iulia Ruxandra Teodoru

September 5, 2017

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Javier Kapsoli, and Iulia Ruxandra Teodoru. Benchmarking Social Spending Using Efficiency Frontiers, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2017) accessed November 5, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

Developing and low-income economies face the challenge of increasing public spending to address sizeable infrastructure and social gaps while simultaneously restoring the fiscal discipline weakened to countervail the effect of the global recession. Increasing the efficiency of social spending could be the key policy to address the dilemma as it allows the optimization of the existing resources by reducing spending inefficiencies. This paper quantifies the efficiency gap in the health and education sectors for a large sample of developing and emerging countries and proposes measures to reduce these gaps for the specific cases of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Subject: Education, Education spending, Expenditure, Expenditure efficiency, Health, Health care spending

Keywords: Central America, Developing countries, Education, Education spending, Efficiency, Efficiency saving, Efficiency score, Guatemala, Health, Health care spending, Honduras, Low-income countries, Public spending, Public spending in education, Social spending trend, Spending, Technical efficiency, Wage, Wage bill, WP

Publication Details

  • Pages:

    26

  • Volume:

    ---

  • DOI:

    ---

  • Issue:

    ---

  • Series:

    Working Paper No. 2017/197

  • Stock No:

    WPIEA2017197

  • ISBN:

    9781484315309

  • ISSN:

    1018-5941

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