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The income generated from parental migration can increase funds available for children's education. In countries where informal payments to teachers are common migration could therefore increase petty corruption in education. This hypothesis is tested by investigating the effect of migration on educational inputs. An instrumental variables approach is used on survey data and matched administrative records from the World Bank's Open Budget Initiative (BOOST) from Moldova, one of the countries with the highest emigration rates. Contrary to the positive income effect, the strongest migration-related response in private education expenditure that is found is a substantial decrease in informal payments to public school teachers. Any positive income effect due to migration must hence be overcompensated by some payment-reducing effects. A number of potential explanations at the family level, school level or community level are discussed, several of these explanations ruled out and possible interpretations for future research highlighted.

Corruption --- Education Spending --- Emigration --- Migration --- Social Remittances

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How can countries make sustainable gains in student learning at scale? This is a pressing question for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)--and the developing world more broadly--as countries seek to build human capital to drive sustainable growth. Significant progress in access has expanded coverage such that nearly all children in the region attend primary school, but many do not gain basic skills and drop out before completing secondary school, in part due to low-quality service delivery. The preponderance of evidence shows that it is learning--and not schooling in and of itself--that contributes to individual earnings, economic growth, and reduced inequality. For LAC in particular, low levels of human capital are a critical factor in explaining the region's relatively weak growth performance over the last half century. The easily measurable inputs are well-known, and the end goal is relatively clear, but raising student achievement at scale remains a challenge. Why? Part of the answer lies in management--the managers, structures, and practices that guide how inputs into the education system are translated into outputs, and ultimately outcomes. While management is often mentioned as an important factor in education policy discussions, relatively little quantitative research has been done to define and measure it. And even less has been done to unpack how and how much management matters for education quality. This study presents new conceptual and empirical contributions that can be synthesized in four key messages: 1. Student learning is unlikely to improve at scale without better management. 2. Management quality can be measured and should be measured as a catalyst for improvement. 3. Management affects how well every level of an education system functions, from individual schools to central technical units, and how well they work together. 4. Several pathways to strengthening management are open to LAC countries now, with the potential for significant results. The study elaborates on each of these messages, synthesizing recent data and research and presenting the results of several new research initiatives from across the region.

Coronavirus --- COVID-19 --- Education Management --- Education Outcomes --- Education Quality --- Education Spending --- Education Systems Reforms --- Learning Loss --- Public Schools --- Student Learning

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This paper assesses the efficiency of government expenditure on education and health in 38 countries in Africa in 1984-95, both in relation to each other and compared with countries in Asia and the Western Hemisphere. The results show that, on average, countries in Africa are less efficient than countries in Asia and the Western Hemisphere; however, education and health spending in Africa became more efficient during that period. The assessment further suggests that improvements in educational attainment and health output in African countries require more than just higher budgetary allocations.

Public Finance --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Education: General --- Health: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Education --- Health economics --- Expenditure --- Education spending --- Health care spending --- Health --- Expenditures, Public --- Burkina Faso

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This paper looks at how countries have mobilized additional resources for education and assesses their impact on access and learning outcomes, using the World Bank's new Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling measure. The paper shows that global spending on education has risen significantly over the past two decades, although spending as a share of gross domestic product has remained relatively unchanged, at about 4.5 percent. However, global trends mask large differences across regions and country income groups. For example, low-income countries recorded the largest increases in terms of the share of GDP spent on education, but the absolute amount they devoted to education remained low compared to other countries. Economic growth has been the main driver of increases in public education spending. Yet, countries that achieved the largest and most rapid spending increases did this through a combination of increases in overall government revenues, a greater prioritization of education in the government budget as well as healthy economic growth. Increases in public education spending did not generally result in major improvements in average education outcomes. Using the available data, the paper shows that a doubling of government spending per child led to an increase in learning-adjusted years of schooling of only half a year. Preliminary findings also show that countries with lower efficiency and spending are expected to get the most from increases in spending in improved education outcomes. The paper concludes by outlining an approach that allows countries to assess their potential for increasing education funding and the expected effects on their education outcomes, based on benchmarks drawing from the data of comparable countries. It also underscores the urgent need to improve data on public education spending and education outcomes, to extend this analysis to cover a wider set of countries and increase the robustness of country-level benchmarks.

Economic Growth --- Economic Theory and Research --- Education --- Education Finance --- Education Outcomes --- Educational Sciences --- Fiscal Space --- Industrial Economics --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Primary Education --- Public Education Spending --- Public Sector Development --- Secondary Education

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This paper studies the evolution of worldwide military spending during 1970-2018. It finds that military spending in relation to GDP is converging, but into three separate groups of countries. In the largest group, responsible for 90 percent of worldwide spending, outlays have remained stubbornly high. Military spending in developing economies reacts to improvements in security conditions and military spending in neighboring countries, suggesting that further increases in the peace dividend are possible. In developing economies, rising social spending tends to crowd out military outlays, but this is not the case in advanced economies. With social outlays projected to rise as developing countries look to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), military spending could come under pressure to fall further.

Expenditures, Public. --- Appropriations and expenditures --- Government appropriations --- Government expenditures --- Government spending --- Public expenditures --- Public spending --- Spending, Government --- Finance, Public --- Public administration --- Government spending policy --- Public Finance --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- National Security and War --- Public finance & taxation --- Defense spending --- Expenditure --- Health care spending --- Total expenditures --- Education spending --- Expenditures, Public --- United Kingdom