Financial Corrections on Public Procurement as a Corrective Mechanism for Protection of Public Budget Expenditure

The article aims to analyze financial corrections in public procurement as one of the main corrective mechanisms for protection of public budget expenditures. To achieve this goal, three tasks have been performed: 1) Preventive and corrective mechanisms for protection of public expenditures are presented; 2) The organization of the control mechanisms regarding the public procurements and the imposition of financial corrections in Bulgaria is revealed and 3) the contribution of two international organizations to the topic is outlined - the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank. The research methods used are historical-logical analysis and content analysis. The result of the research is a critical analysis and summary, which complement the Bulgarian analytical literature in the field.

Moderating effect of internal control system to determinants influencing the financial statement disclosure

This study examines whether the internal control system moderates the relationship among budget expenditure, government size, legislative size, and audit findings on financial statement disclosure in Indonesia. This is a quantitative study that uses the purposive sampling technique to collect data from 240 local governments in Indonesia. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with Smart PLS. The results show that government size, legislative size, and audit findings had a positive and significant effect on financial statement disclosure, whereas budget expenditure does not. In addition, the findings revealed that the internal control system moderates the relationship between government size and legislative size and financial statement disclosure, but not by audit findings. The study contributed to extending the institutional and agency theory that explains these factors toward disclosure in the local government in Indonesia. The findings suggest that Indonesia’s local governments consider potential factors regarding increasing pressure to carry out disclosure of financial statements, as well as increasing the proper disclosure required by applicable Indonesian regulations.

Budget expenditure management in conditions of decentralization on the example of Ukraine

The object of this research is budget expenditures. The limited financial resources are typical for most countries of the world, therefore, it is important to find and improve the ways of forming and implementing the budgetary policy of the state at every stage of the budgetary process. The budget of any country reflects important economic and social aspects of the life of society as a whole and each person individually. Of course, the budget is a powerful regulator of the main economic processes. One of the most problematic areas is ineffective and inefficient use of budget expenditures. Therefore, this study is aimed at developing practical recommendations for optimizing the process of managing budget expenditures in the context of decentralization to ensure sustainable socio-economic development of the state. To achieve this aim, the author used the problems of managing budget expenditures on the example of Ukraine in the context of the introduction of decentralization processes in the country. The research used the methods of scientific abstraction, systems approach, grouping and classification. To determine the integrated indicator of the efficiency of budget expenditures management at the level of a budgetary institution, society, region, state, a statistical method was used that reflects the correlations of the constituent indicators. To optimize the process of managing budget expenditures, which is considered as a cycle of public policy, two main approaches are proposed. First, a change in the concept of budget expenditures management – a transition from the consumption budget to the development budget, which will allow achieving sustainable economic development in the long term. Secondly, it is proposed to introduce an assessment of the effectiveness of budget expenditure management by calculating an integrated indicator, consisting of all components that reflect the effectiveness of the budgetary policy being implemented. Thanks to the proposed methodology, it is possible to timely adjust the policy for managing budget expenditures in the event of an unsatisfactory value of the integrated indicator of the effectiveness of managing budget expenditures. This provides the advantage that such an adjustment will have a positive effect, since it will be carried out both at the level of a budgetary institution, society, region, and the state as a whole.

The social assistance system in Poland and its financing in 2015-2018 as a factor of the stabilization of the socio-economic policy of the state in turbulent conditions

Most developed countries in the world strive to provide their citizens with adequate living conditions and ensure a high level of social security. This security system also includes social assistance, which is the last level of state policy in supporting its citizens who find themselves in a difficult life situation. Apart from fulfilling a protective role, the social welfare system also plays a stabilizing role in the socio-economic policy of the state. Problems related to the social system and financial resources allocated to their functioning from the state budget are the subject of many scientific publications around the world. Meanwhile, in Poland, there are few scientific publications on the effectiveness and financing of expenditure for social purposes, including the social assistance system. Identifying the level of financial resources allocated to the social assistance system may be the first step to rationalizing the system of financial transfers from the state budget. The article aims is to identify the level of budgetary expenditure allocated in Poland in 2015-2018 to the social assistance system. The analyzes carried out indicate that in the period 2015-2018, budget expenditure on the social assistance system and supporting families increased. In 2018, these expenses accounted for as much as 12.7% of the total state budget expenditure. There is a noticeable tendency consisting of reducing financial resources allocated to social assistance while increasing budgetary transfers directed to families with children - government's "Family 500+" program.

State budget of USSR in 1950s — 80s: dynamics and structure of expenditures

The structure of the state budget expenditure of the USSR in its historical dynamics during the 1950s — 1980s is considered. The sources were statistical collections published by the Ministry of Finance of the USSR in the period under review, on their basis the electronic database “State Budget of the USSR” was created, according to which all the calculations presented in the article were carried out. It is noted that the dynamics of the state budget expenditures of the USSR during the entire period of the 1950s — 80s was positive. It is indicated that there was a constant increase in expenditures, which had an average annual value of about 6.5 %; in total, during the period under study, the expenditure part of the state budget increased by 11.6 times, and in per capita terms only by 7.3 times. It is shown that the structure of expenditures of the state budget of the USSR in the 1950s — 1980s included expenditures on the national economy, social and cultural events, public administration and defense. The author concludes that the construction of a welfare state in the USSR in the 1950s — 1970s, along with the burden of military spending, became a heavy burden on the budget system, limiting the government’s room for maneuver in the context of the budget crisis that broke out in the second half of the 1980s.

Regional development planning and disparity in Bangladesh

This study sheds some light on the regional development planning and regional disparity in Bangladesh and also analyzes spatial disparity of development through several factors to picturize the poverty situation in different regions of the country. In fact, this paper tries to represent the scenario of planning in micro-regional level. Findings from the paper reveal that, some regions of Bangladesh are still underdeveloped because of the fact that they continuously receive marginal share of public expenditure and national budget of the country. Gini Index for the total budget shows an incompatible level of income inequality to the people across various regions in Bangladesh. Northern and West regions of the country are mostly deprived of proper development planning and allocation of efficient budget. Overall, this article deeply provides a briefing for field people involved in regional planning processes in the rural areas. Bangladesh is yet to decentralize empirical power to the local government authority to ensure proper budget allocation and distribution. Allocation in ADP for health, education and agriculture sector should be enhanced urgently. Generating regional data will be much effective to fabricate more dynamic development planning and to understand the current situations of the lack-lusture regions of the country. Key Words: Bangladesh, Development, Planning, Budget, Expenditure, Regions, Poverty

Comparative Evaluation of Sustainable Framework in STEM Intensive Programs for Secondary and Tertiary Education

Sustainability of learning environments is a key pillar of all societal development frameworks. A variety of research address the development of education as a fine balanced relation between flexibility, adaptability, innovation, and efficient resource allocation. The main limitation of current approaches is the lack of correlation between various efficiency analyses and budget expenditure of learning environments. The current research aims at undertaking a comparative evaluation of a sustainable framework in STEM intensive programs for secondary and tertiary education. This was done using several established methods like the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle for the development main framework, the Analytic Hierarchy Process for efficiency evaluation and Value Analysis for budget expenditure allocations and improvement identification. The main framework is based on learning objectives defined in accordance with Blooms’ revised taxonomy and student feedback was collected through surveys and group feedback. The main results of the study show that the framework had overall efficiencies over the 80% threshold in both secondary and tertiary education, whilst some of the components scored under 65%, identifying immediate improvement features. Further research involves the transition to an online and mixed teaching environment, by adapting the content and framework structure with the aid of smart learning environments.

A link between municipal spending on housing and other factors explaining housing conditions in a country

Housing policy has been for years pronounced as an important field for urban development. However, cities are rather reluctant to join in, explaining their position mainly by financial scarcity and low competence. This however does have social implications on life of the citizens. The aim of this study is to conduct a basic prove of a link between proportion of municipal spending on Housing and other factors explaining Housing conditions in a country. In other words, the goal of this brief study is to analyse what aspects of housing may be linked with the level of municipal spending on Housing and how. To do so, data about 21 countries from OECD Housing Database have been used for basic quantitative analyses (correlation matrices and linear regressions). The outputs suggest that the level of municipal spending on Housing is positively linked with the proportion of national budget designated for Housing and the GDP level of the country. It has also been found that housing costs of people, who have a mortgage, are higher in places, where municipal budget expenditure is on a higher level. Finally, the results indicate, that where proportion of municipal budget spending on Housing is higher, there the construction of new dwellings is slower and the relative expenditure of households on Housing is lower. Although the results may have interesting value for policy makers, they need to be proved by a further analysis. This study is only a brief baseline for further analysis, because of low number of observations and because further factors related to housing may need to be added.

CLUSTER ANALYSIS OF TERRITORIAL COMMUNITIES’ BUDGET EXPENDITURE STRUCTURE IN UKRAINE UNDER FISCAL EQUALIZATION

The national fiscal equalization mechanism currently in force in Ukraine functions according to the tax capability criterion based on local budget revenues from personal income taxation. Potential conflicts of interest are inherent to this criterion due to differences in full revenue structures of territorial communities’ budgets, as well as their public service capacity and capital endowment, so that local authorities may not be motivated enough to use central government transfers to stimulate wider demand for productive labor in the community. Based on the relative budget expenditure indicators for 872 Ukrainian territorial communities, according to the 2020 totals, five categories of expenditure structure were identified using k-means cluster analysis: 1) the share of administrative spending in general fund expenditure is between 30% and 50%, the share of capital expenditures is at most 25% of total budget expenditure; 2) the capital expenditure share is at least 20%; 3) the share of wages is at most 75% in general fund expenditure; 4) the administrative spending share is higher than 50%; 5) the administrative spending share is lower than 30%, capital expenditure does not exceed 20% of the total. Parameters were estimated for log-linear dependency between general fund revenues per capita and ratios of direct/reverse transfers from central government budget, within the identified clusters and the full sample. The results allow noticing that the dependency between the revenue values and transfer ratios is statistically weaker and less elastic for clusters 2 and 3. Besides, the cluster groups show the statistically significant difference in average population of the respective communities, with lower population in clusters 1 and 4, moderate in 2 and 5, and higher in cluster 3. The differences in expenditure structure between donors and recipients of the fiscal equalization mechanism are most evident in modestly populated communities, i.e. with approximately 10,000 populations (clusters 2 and 5), where the analysis reveals subsidizing of higher administrative expenditure and capital investment shares at the expense of communities with more efficient administration. The potential conflict of interest is further amplified by lower differentiation in transfer ratios of communities with lower wage share, which predominantly act as donors through reverse budget transfers (cluster 3), as well as of communities with high capital expense shares, which are predominantly recipients (cluster 2). The identified interests and issues of the communities constituting the expenditure structure clusters allow suggesting two model priorities for inter-municipal cooperation. The first one is common projects in public services provision between the modestly populated communities with high wage shares and unequal endowment in investment resources. The second one is the shared commercial use of resources in least financially capable communities, funded by donor communities with comparatively low wage share which, in their turn, would require further optimization of administrative expenditures to be able to implement the projects of this kind.