Social Spending and Aggregate Welfare in Developing and Transition Economies

Gebregziabher, Fiseha Haile; Niño‐Zarazúa, Miguel

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2431213

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 95 publications

(135 reference statements)

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“…For health, Anand and Ravallion () and Bidani and Ravallion () showed that health expenditure has a positive and significant impact on the poor in developing countries whereas Gupta et al () provided evidence that health expenditure was important in reducing child mortality. Similarly Baldacci et al (); Gomanee et al (); Mosley et al (), and more recently, Gebregziabher and Niño‐Zarazúa () have shown that public spending is an important determinant of social outcomes and aggregate welfare, including lower poverty incidence.…”

Section: Social Policy and The Aid Architecturementioning

confidence: 86%

Aid, Social Policy and Development

Addison

Niño‐Zarazúa

Tarp

2015

J of Intl Development

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This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture as an introduction to the UNU-WIDER Special Issue. Beginning in the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and will continue under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which have even more ambitious targets. The paper also assesses some of the concerns associated with the 'Paris-style' aid modalities, and discusses major challenges for the future global development agenda.

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Section: Social Policy and The Aid Architecturementioning

confidence: 86%

Aid, Social Policy and Development

Addison

Niño‐Zarazúa

Tarp

2015

J of Intl Development

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“…In the ultimate analysis, in the presence of many market imperfections, adverse selection, substantial economic rents, and inequality of opportunity, the separability between the efficiency and equity arguments against inequality cannot be maintained, but above all make social protection and redistributive policies justifiable. Gebregziabher and Niño-Zarazúa (2014) present evidence to suggest that social spending improves the inequality-adjusted human development index of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and public health expenditure reduces child mortality.…”

Section: Theoretical and Empirical Underpinningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The positive impact of social welfare programmes in areas such as poverty-inequality reduction, consumption smoothing, human development, and economic growth across various countries or regions of the world has been emphasized in the literature (Alderman and Yemtsov, 2012;2013;Barrientos 2013;Easterly 2007;Gebregziabher and Niño-Zarazúa 2014). There is also evidence to suggest that social spending is on the rise in the developing world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fiscal Capacity, Democratic Institutions and Social Welfare Outcomes in Developing Countries

Murshed

Bergouigi

Badiuzzaman

et al. 2020

Defence and Peace Economics

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The purpose of this paper is to gauge the various determinants of social sector spending captured by social protection and education spending in a cross section of developing countries, a subject on which there is scant empirical evidence. We hypothesize that fiscal capacity is necessary but not sufficient for resource allocation in this area, because the political will to do so must also be present. Using a panel data instrumental variable approach, we find that greater fiscal capacity robustly raises social spending in developing countries in the period 1990 to 2010. It is also strongly evident that rising democratisation enhances social sector spending; the presence of greater democracy and higher fiscal capacity could reinforce this effect. Our work also innovatively incorporates inequality into the analysis, finding that social expenditure is greater in more egalitarian societies. Military expenditure also appears to crowd out social protection expenditure, but not robustly.

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“…Similarly, we use the logarithm of population as an external instrument, which captures the scale of the economy. Easterly and Rebelo () and Gebregziabher and Niño‐Zarazúa () find that the scale of the economy is an important determinant of public spending, with countries with higher population exhibiting lower public spending per capita. Therefore, we predict a negative association between aid and the scale of economy, yet there is no reason to suspect that a country can experience higher or lower economic growth simply because it has more or less people.…”

Section: Empirical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Aid, Political Business Cycles and Growth in Africa

Chiripanhura

Niño‐Zarazúa

2015

J of Intl Development

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This study develops a model of opportunistic behaviour in which an incumbent government resorts to expansionary fiscal and/or monetary stimuli to foster economic growth and thus, maximize the probability of re-election. Using a panel dataset of 31 African countries covering the period 1980 to 2009, we test whether donor aid facilitates such political business cycles and investigate their effect on growth. We find evidence that donors, through guaranteeing support to incumbent governments, may unwittingly instigate political business cycles. With forbearance, and sometimes complicity by donors, aid seems to allow incumbent governments to instigate macroeconomic stimuli that ensure electoral victory with no fear of losing aid support.

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Social Spending and Aggregate Welfare in Developing and Transition Economies

Cited by 11 publications

References 95 publications

Aid, Social Policy and Development

Aid, Social Policy and Development

Fiscal Capacity, Democratic Institutions and Social Welfare Outcomes in Developing Countries

Aid, Political Business Cycles and Growth in Africa

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