Reallocating Public Spending to Reduce Income Inequality

Can a government reduce income inequality by changing the composition of public spending while keeping the total level of expenditure fixed? Using newly assembled data on spending composition for 83 countries across all income groups, this paper shows that reallocating spending toward social protection and infrastructure is associated with reduced income inequality, particularly when it is financed through cuts in defense spending. However, the political and security situation matters. The analysis does not find evidence that lowering defense spending to finance infrastructure and social outlays improves income distribution in countries with weak institutions and at higher risk of conflict. Reallocating social protection and infrastructure spending towards other types of spending tends to increase income inequality. Accounting for the long-term impact of health spending, and particularly education spending, helps to better capture the equalizing effects of these expenditures. The paper includes a discussion of the implications of the findings for Indonesia, a major emerging market where income inequality is at the center of policy issues.

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Russia's budget reflects caution on future spending

Emerald Expert Briefings ◽

10.1108/oxan-db216572 ◽

2016 ◽

Keyword(s):

Budget Deficit ◽

Public Spending ◽

Oil Price ◽

Economic Recovery ◽

Education Spending ◽

Monetary Policies ◽

Content Type ◽

Low Levels ◽

Spending Cuts

Significance A three-year budget cycle is intended to create predictability after a year in which the initial budget had to be revised as the oil price outlook grew gloomier. Spending cuts are envisaged to continue beyond 2017 as revenue predictions are modest amid low rates of economic growth, and the objective is to cut the budget deficit progressively. Impacts The diversion of reserve money to sustain public spending will undermine economic modernisation programmes. Low levels of health and education spending will harm human capital in the medium-to-long term. The Central Bank is unlikely to relax monetary policies significantly prior to 2018, and then only if inflation recedes to the targeted 4%. Tight monetary policy will restrict credit growth and thus economic recovery.

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Can inequalities in political participation explain health inequalities?

10.31235/osf.io/5b2k3 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Aaron Reeves ◽

Johan P. Mackenbach

Keyword(s):

Income Inequality ◽

Political Participation ◽

Educational Attainment ◽

Health Inequalities ◽

Social Protection ◽

Health Spending ◽

European Countries ◽

Healthy Life ◽

Inequalities In Health ◽

Policy Choices

Inequalities in health are pervasive and durable, but they are not uniform. To date, however, the drivers of these between-country patters in health inequalities remain largely unknown. In this analysis, we draw on data from 17 European countries to explore whether inequalities in political participation, that is, inequalities in voting by educational attainment, are correlated with health inequalities. Over and above a range of relevant confounders, such as GDP, income inequality, health spending, social protection spending, poverty rates, and smoking, greater inequalities in political participation remain correlated with higher health inequalities. If ‘politicians and officials are under no compulsion to pay much heed to classes and groups of citizens that do not vote’ then political inequalities could indirectly affect health through its impact on policy choices that determine who has access to the resources necessary for a healthy life. Inequalities in political participation, then, may well be one of the ‘causes of the causes’ of ill-health.

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Pengaruh Belanja Ekonomi di Era Desentralisasi Fiskal terhadap Kemiskinan di Indonesia

Jurnal EMT KITA ◽

10.35870/emt.v5i1.257 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 10

Author(s):

Zainuddin Zainuddin ◽

Hamdani Hamdani ◽

Ilyas Ilyas ◽

Maryam Maryam

Keyword(s):

Panel Data ◽

Social Protection ◽

Fiscal Decentralization ◽

Panel Data Analysis ◽

Random Effect ◽

Random Effect Model ◽

Health Spending ◽

Provincial Government ◽

Analysis Model ◽

Education Spending

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of provincial government sectoral spending on poverty in the era of fiscal decentralization in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the sectoral expenditure variables that are considered closely related to poverty are economic spending, housing and public facilities spending, health spending, education spending, and social protection spending according to provinces in Indonesia. The data in this study is panel data, namely cross-section of 33 provinces, and time series of 4 years, namely the period 2012 - 2015. After the Chow test and Hausman test, as well as the lagrange multiplier test, the analysis model in this study was determined to be the random effect model, which is a common analysis model in panel data analysis. This study concludes that partially negative economic spending on poverty, meaning that sector spending can reduce poverty in the era of fiscal decentralization in Indonesia. In this analysis, it was found that the ability of the independent variable in explaining the dependent variable was 0.190165 units or 19.02%, and the remaining 80.98% was explained by other variables not included in this study.

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The long-term impact of public expenditures on GDP-growth

Society and Economy ◽

10.1556/204.2020.00018 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 42 (4) ◽

pp. 403-419

Author(s):

Gábor Kutasi ◽

Ádám Marton

Keyword(s):

Fixed Effects ◽

Social Protection ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Public Spending ◽

Health Spending ◽

Ordinary Least Squares ◽

Public Expenditures ◽

Gdp Growth ◽

Method Of Moment

AbstractAre governments able to continuously boost economic growth by spending for decades? Can the state be a more efficient user of income by improving the structure of public spending? The paper analyses the correlation between various types of public expenditures and GDP growth in different countries of the EU. The database was composed from the Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG) classification of public spending, which contains data of 25 EU economies in the period 1996–2017. Three econometric models were applied in accordance with the empirical practice found in the literature: first-differences general method of moment (GMM), fixed effects panel and ordinary least squares (OLS) models. The expenditures on social protection proved to have a negative, statistically significant and robust impact on GDP growth. The results are similar for general public spending, and while spending on public order also has a significant and robust coefficient, its sign is ambiguous. The novelty of the article relate to the findings on lagged education and health spending, which have a positive impact on GDP growth.

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Crisis Phones - Suicide Prevention Versus Suggestion/Contagion Effects

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910/a000313 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 36 (3) ◽

pp. 220-224 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Steven Stack

Keyword(s):

Suicide Prevention ◽

Contagion Effects ◽

Long Term Impact

Abstract. Background: There has been no systematic work on the short- or long-term impact of the installation of crisis phones on suicides from bridges. The present study addresses this issue. Method: Data refer to 219 suicides from 1954 through 2013 on the Skyway Bridge in St. Petersburg, Florida. Six crisis phones with signs were installed in July 1999. Results: In the first decade after installation, the phones were used by 27 suicidal persons and credited with preventing 26 or 2.6 suicides a year. However, the net suicide count increased from 48 in the 13 years before installation of phones to 106 the following 13 years or by 4.5 additional suicides/year (t =3.512, p < .001). Conclusion: Although the phones prevented some suicides, there was a net increase after installation. The findings are interpreted with reference to suggestion/contagion effects including the emergence of a controversial bridge suicide blog.

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