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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.

Public Finance --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- Health: Government Policy --- Regulation --- Public Health --- Education: Government Policy --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Education: General --- Health: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Education --- Health economics --- Education spending --- Expenditure --- Health --- Expenditure efficiency --- Health care spending --- Expenditures, Public --- El Salvador

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With limited financing options, increasing investment efficiency will be a critical avenue to building infrastructure for many countries, particularly in the context of post-pandemic recovery and rising debt emanating from higher energy costs and other pressures. Estimating investment efficiency, however, presents many methodological pitfalls. Using various methods—–stochastic frontier analysis, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and bootstrapped DEA—this paper estimates efficiency scores for a wide range of countries employing metrics of infrastructure quantity and utilization. We find that efficiency scores are relatively robust across methodologies and data used. A considerable efficiency gap exists: Removing all inefficiencies could increase infrastructure output by 55 percent overall, when averaging across 12 estimation approaches—in particular, by 45 percent for advanced economies, 54 percent for emerging countries, and 65 percent for low income countries. Infrastructure output would increase by a still-sizeable 30 percent if instead of eliminating all efficiency, countries achieved the efficiency level of their income group’s 90th percentile.

Aggregate Factor Income Distribution --- Capacity --- Capital --- Currency crises --- Economic & financial crises & disasters --- Economics of specific sectors --- Economics --- Economics: General --- Expenditure --- Financial institutions --- Financial Instruments --- Income --- Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities: General --- Informal sector --- Infrastructure --- Institutional Investors --- Intangible Capital --- Investment & securities --- Investment --- Investments: Stocks --- Macroeconomics --- National accounts --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: Infrastructures --- Non-bank Financial Institutions --- Other Public Investment and Capital Stock --- Pension Funds --- Public Economics: Miscellaneous Issues: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Public Finance --- Public investment spending --- Public investments --- Saving and investment --- Stocks

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La reacción audaz que tuvo la política fiscal de América Latina ante la crisis financiera mundial fue tomada como una señal de que la región finalmente había superado su pasado fiscal pro-cíclico. Sin embargo, la mayoría de los países de la región aún no han reconstruido su espacio fiscal, a pesar de los abundantes ingresos públicos provenientes de las materias primas y el crecimiento relativamente estable tras la crisis. A partir de la experiencia de Brasil, Chile, Colombia, México, Perú y Uruguay, este documento analiza las lecciones y legados de la crisis abordando las siguientes preguntas, entre otras: ¿Cuánto contribuyó el estímulo fiscal de 2009 al crecimiento? ¿Qué deficiencias se identificaron en los marcos de política fiscal? ¿Qué reformas institucionales se necesitan ahora para aportar anclas persistentes para la política fiscal? ¿En qué medida se necesita reconstruir las protecciones de cara al futuro?.

Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Fiscal Policy --- Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government --- Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: General --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- National Budget, Deficit, and Debt: General --- Debt --- Debt Management --- Sovereign Debt --- Public finance & taxation --- Fiscal policy --- Public debt --- Fiscal stance --- Expenditure --- Fiscal governance --- Debts, Public --- Expenditures, Public --- Brazil

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Over the past decade, rising oil prices have translated into high levels of public investment in most MENA and CCA oil exporters. This has prompted questions about the efficiency of public investment in generating growth and closing infrastructure gaps, as well as concerns about fiscal vulnerabilities. When public investment is inefficient, higher levels of spending may simply lead to larger budget deficits, without sufficiency increasing the quantity or quality of public infrastructure in support of economic growth. This paper examines the efficiency of public investment in the MENA and CCA oil exporters using several techniques, including a novel application of the efficiency frontier analysis, estimates of unit investment costs, and assessments of public investment processes. The analysis confirms that these oil exporters have substantial room to improve public investment efficiency. Reforms in the public financial and investment management systems are needed to achieve this objective.

Public investments --- Petroleum industry and trade --- Energy industries --- Oil industries --- Government investments --- Investments, Public --- Expenditures, Public --- Investments --- Capital budget --- Economic development projects --- Investment of public funds --- Economic aspects --- Finance --- E-books --- Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics --- Capacity --- Capital investments --- Capital spending --- Capital --- Environmental and Ecological Economics: General --- Environmental management --- Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development --- Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development --- Fiscal Policy --- Infrastructure --- Intangible Capital --- Investment --- Macroeconomics --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: Infrastructures --- Natural Resources --- Natural resources --- Other Public Investment and Capital Stock --- Public finance & taxation --- Public Finance --- Public investment and public-private partnerships (PPP) --- Public investment spending --- Public-private sector cooperation --- Saving and investment --- United States