A Hybrid Approach to Estimating the Efficiency of Public Spending on Education in Emerging and Developing Economies

January 30, 2014

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Francesco Grigoli. A Hybrid Approach to Estimating the Efficiency of Public Spending on Education in Emerging and Developing Economies, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2014) accessed November 23, 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

The measurement of the efficiency of public education expenditure using parametric and non-parametric methods has proven challenging. This paper seeks to overcome the difficulties of earlier studies by using a hybrid approach to measure the efficiency of secondary education spending in emerging and developing economies. The approach accounts for the impact of the level of development on education outcomes by constructing different efficiency frontiers for lower- and higher-income economies. We find evidence of large potential gains in enrollment rates by improving efficiency. These are largest in lower-income economies, especially in Africa. Reallocating expenditure to reduce student-to-teacher ratios (where these are high) and improving the quality of institutions (as measured by the "governance effectiveness" indicator in the World bank's Governance Indicators database) could help improve the efficiency of education spending. Easing the access to education facilities and reducing income inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient) could also help improve efficiency.

Subject: Education, Education spending, Expenditure, Expenditure efficiency, Income, National accounts

Keywords: Developing economies, Education expenditure, Education spending, Efficiency, Emerging economies, Enrollment rate, Expenditure efficiency, Expenditure policy, Expenditure variable, Gini coefficient, Hybrid, Income, Literacy rate, Public education, Rank correlation, Secondary education expenditure, Teacher ratio, Western Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere economy, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

24
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2014/019
Stock No:

WPIEA2014019
ISBN:

9781484398241
ISSN:

1018-5941

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