Assessment of public expenditure on education and the impact of revenues: the case of Moldova

Abstract

Investment in human capital is a key strategic concept for the economy and for future development of a country. Therefore, public expenditure on education determines a major point in countries like Moldova, where the education is financed from public funds predominantly. Theories show that the link between expenditures and revenues is inevitable in most of the cases. This study attempts to approach two angles of spending in education: the first is to study and analyse public expenditures in education and in what budget proportions they are spent, and the second is to find out whether there exists a relationship between expenditures in education and government revenues; if yes, to what extent the revenues would have an impact on the expenditures in education. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag model was used in order to find the impact of revenues on expenditures in education. The model was tested for stability, heteroskedasticity, correlation, and normality. The results of the study show that the expenditures on education in the Republic of Moldova lack stability in relation to the economy and that the significant impact from government revenues determines the expenditures in the short and long run. The research is a contribution to the enhancement of public expenditure policy in education taking into consideration the limits imposed from the revenues side, and it may guide governments for better decision-making policies.