Fiscal space
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Fiscal Policy Challenges for Latin America during the Next Stages of the Pandemic: The Need for a Fiscal Pact Open
The fiscal policy response to the COVID-19 shock in most LAC countries was much larger than during the GFC, suggesting fiscal space was not as tight as expected. We argue that it is feasible and desirable, though not without risks, to emba…
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Fiscal space for domestic funding of health and other social services Open
To progress toward universal health coverage and promote inclusive social and economic development, it will be necessary to strengthen domestic resource mobilization for health. In this paper, we examine options for increasing domestic gov…
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Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Rates Open
Rethinking fiscal and monetary policy in an economic environment of high debt and low interest rates. Policy makers in advanced economies find themselves in an unusual fiscal environment: debt ratios are historically high, and—once the fig…
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Macroeconomic Policy in the Time of COVID-19 : A Primer for Developing Countries Open
Critical times call for well-designed government action and effective public service delivery-preserving, rather than ignoring, the practices for macroeconomic stability and proper governance that serve in good and bad times
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Fiscal Space and the Aftermath of Financial Crises: How It Matters and Why Open
In a sample of 30 countries during the period 1980–2017, those with lower debt-to-GDP ratios responded to financial distress with much more expansionary fiscal policy and suffered much less severe aftermaths. Two lines of evidence together…
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Modelling the impact of raising tobacco taxes on public health and finance Open
Tobacco taxation can prevent millions of smoking-attributable deaths throughout the world and contribute to achieving the sustainable development goals. There is also potential for tobacco taxation to create the fiscal space needed to fina…
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Fiscal response to the COVID‐19 crisis in advanced and emerging market economies<sup>†</sup> Open
The fiscal policy response to the COVID‐19 crisis was swift and strong, in tandem with monetary policy. Advanced economies (AEs) deployed a much larger fiscal response than emerging market economies (EMEs) throughout the pandemic. This stu…
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Nigerian budgetary response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its shrinking fiscal space: financial sustainability, employment, social inequality and business implications Open
Purpose This article aims to explore the Nigerian government's budgetary response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the economic and social implications of the pandemic response. Design/methodology/approach Our analysis is based on a rev…
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Improving public hospital efficiency and fiscal space implications: the case of Mauritius Open
Background General Government Health Expenditure (GGHE) in Mauritius accounted for only 10% of General Government Expenditure for the fiscal year 2018. This is less than the pledge taken under the Abuja 2001 Declaration to allocate at leas…
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Fiscal Space, Poverty and Inequality in Africa Open
The benefit of growth experienced since 2000 in Africa has not been broadly shared. Poverty fell by only 8.0 percentage points between 1990 and 2010 compared to the targeted 28.3 percentage points by 2015. Although income inequality fell b…
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The impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) and the global oil price shock on the fiscal position of oil-exporting developing countries Open
The double blow of coronavirus (COVID-19) and the oil price shock is hitting oil-exporting developing countries particularly hard, at a time when the fossil fuel industry is facing a process of structural decline. Although some countries m…
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Ethical Perspective: Five Unacceptable Trade-offs on the Path to Universal Health Coverage Open
This article discusses what ethicists have called "unacceptable trade-offs" in health policy choices related to universal health coverage (UHC). Since the fiscal space is constrained, trade-offs need to be made. But some trade-offs are una…
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Can Low- and Middle-Income Countries Increase Domestic Fiscal Space for Health: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Assess Possible Sources of Expansion Open
There has not been a systematic effort to synthesize findings of domestic fiscal space for health (DFSH) assessments, despite the existence of a commonly applied conceptual framework. To fill this gap and provide support to policy makers d…
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Innovative financing to fund surgical systems and expand surgical care in low-income and middle-income countries Open
Strong surgical systems are necessary to prevent premature death and avoidable disability from surgical conditions. The epidemiological transition, which has led to a rising burden of non-communicable diseases and injuries worldwide, will …
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Institutional quality and economic growth: evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa countries Open
This paper employs two step systems GMM to analyse the effect of institutional quality on economic growth for Sub-Saharan African countries for the period from 2006 to 2018. The findings show that an improvement on institutional quality po…
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Financing the HIV response in sub-Saharan Africa from domestic sources: Moving beyond a normative approach Open
Despite optimism about the end of AIDS, the HIV response requires sustained financing into the future. Given flat-lining international aid, countries' willingness and ability to shoulder this responsibility will be central to access to HIV…
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Taxing Times in Indonesia: The Challenge of Restoring Competitiveness and the Search for Fiscal Space Open
Indonesia’s economic growth picked up slightly in mid-2016 but remains below the level demanded by government and popular aspirations. Despite a plethora of reforms intended to increase efficiency and productivity, some policies are perver…
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FISCAL CONSOLIDATION PROGRAMS AND INCOME INEQUALITY Open
We document a strong empirical relationship between higher income inequality and stronger recessive impacts of fiscal consolidation episodes across time and space. To explain this finding, we develop a life‐cycle economy with uninsurable i…
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Poverty alleviation in the contex of fiscal decentralization in Indonesia Open
Acceleration of poverty reduction in Indonesia is largely determined by the role of regional governments in implementing fiscal decentralization.Three indicators of fiscal decentralization were used to measure their effects on poverty redu…
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Can They Do It All? Fiscal Space in Low-Income Countries Open
According to U.N. estimates, low-income countries will have to increase their annual public spending by up to 30 percent of GDP to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), raising the question of whether they can do it all.This pa…
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Assessing Fiscal Space for Health in the SDG Era: A Different Story Open
—Initially defined for overall public purposes, the concept of fiscal space was subsequently developed and adapted for the health sector. In this context, it has been applied in research and policy in over 50 low- and middle-income countri…
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Ethiopia Public Expenditure Review Open
Ethiopia’s remarkable socio-economic
\n transformation over the last decade has been marked by: a
\n reorientation of expenditure from recurrent to capital; a
\n significant devolution of resources from Federal Government
\n to Regions; an…
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Local Budget Resilience in Times of COVID-19 Crisis: Evidence from Indonesia Open
The COVID-19 pandemic has put immense pressure on the fiscal situation. Central revenues have decelerated while expenditures had to be increased to facilitate economic recovery. Local governments faced even harder challenges as intergovern…
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Pakistan: making a “COVID budget” in a struggling economy Open
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the fiscal measures undertaken by the Pakistani government to counter the recessionary pressures of the coronavirus pandemic. The authors analyse the economic, social and political factors th…
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Does expanding fiscal space lead to improved funding of the health sector in developing countries?: lessons from Kenya, Lagos State (Nigeria) and South Africa Open
Despite dramatic improvements in tax revenue collection, fiscal space for health in the three territories did not improve. Ministries of Health must strengthen their ability to motivate for larger allocations from government revenue throug…
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The Implications of Aging on the Health Systems of the Pacific Islands: Challenges and Opportunities Open
Population aging presents substantial and unique challenges and opportunities to Pacific Island countries. The countries in this region currently have young populations, but the population is rapidly changing. With some of the highest rate…
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<span>COVID</span>‐19 and fiscal space for health system in Pakistan: It is time for a policy decision Open
Summary Most developing countries with weak economies and low GDPs strive to invest an optimal amount of budget to health sector. Compounding on this state of affairs is their inherent inefficiency to spend even that meager amount on the w…
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What's wrong with Modern Money Theory: macro and political economic restraints on deficit-financed fiscal policy Open
The essential claim of Modern Money Theory (MMT) is sovereign currency issuing governments, with flexible exchange rates and without foreign currency debt, are financially unconstrained. This paper analyses the macroeconomic arguments behi…
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Horrible trade-offs in a pandemic: Poverty, fiscal space, policy, and welfare Open
We analyze how poverty and a country's fiscal space impact policy and welfare in times of a pandemic. We introduce a subsistence level of consumption into a tractable heterogeneous agent framework, and use this framework to characterize op…
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Is Universal Health Coverage Affordable? Estimated Costs and Fiscal Space Analysis for the Ethiopian Essential Health Services Package Open
Estimating the required resources for implementing an essential health services package (EHSP) is vital to examine its feasibility and affordability. This study aimed to estimate the financial resources required to implement the Ethiopian …