Social Sector Spending in a Panel of Countries

February 1, 2002

Preview Citation

Format: Chicago

Reza Baqir. Social Sector Spending in a Panel of Countries, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2002) accessed November 21, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

This paper presents evidence on the political and economic determinants of social sector spending from a panel dataset. The principal finding is that democratization in countries, as measured by within-country variation in subjective indices of democracy, is a significant predictor of government spending on education and health. The relationship is robust to controlling for a variety of factors and the estimated magnitudes suggest that an increase from the lowest to the highest rating for democracy for a country is associated with approximately 1 percent more central government spending and 3 percent more general government spending in social sectors, as a percent of GDP.

Subject: Education, Education spending, Expenditure, Health care spending, Total expenditures

Keywords: Central government, Country democracy rating, Country effect, Democracy, Democracy index, Education spending, Global, Government spending, Health care spending, IMF country document, Per capita income, Province government, Sector spending, Social sectors, Spending data, Standard deviation, Time series, Total expenditures, Total spending, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

53
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2002/035
Stock No:

WPIEA0352002
ISBN:

9781451845365
ISSN:

1018-5941

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