Current Spending Levels Research Articles

HUMAN CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN FUJIAN PROVINCE-CHINA

Human capital is a key factor in driving economic growth at both the national and provincial levels. This study aimed to evaluate how human capital influences economic growth in Fujian by examining data from 2008 to 2020. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies have confirmed approaches to measuring human capital through formal education, cost-based approaches, and income-based approaches. Based on these approaches, the research objective, and data availability, two variables were selected: trained labor and state budget expenditure on education. To examine the impact of human capital on economic growth, the study employs a multivariate OLS regression method with the following tests: Normal Distribution of Residuals, Heteroscedasticity, Autocorrelation, Multicollinearity. The analysis used trained labor and educational budget expenditure as indicators of human capital. The findings indicated that both trained labor and educational spending had a significant positive impact on Fujian's GRDP. While trained workers contributed to increasing the province's economic output, the current level of spending on education and training was not substantial enough to generate a strong effect on the economy. Therefore, Fujian should focus on developing a strategy to cultivate high-quality human capital and enhance the effectiveness of its investment in education and training in the coming years. As the province continues to modernize and integrate into the global economy, its ability to develop and retain a skilled workforce will be a key determinant of its success. The province's policy makers must adopt solutions that encourage workers to invest in improving their skills and productivity, while also fostering a learning culture. In the context of climate change and limited local resources, Fujian’s reliance on human capital will be critical in achieving its goal of becoming a leading province in the China and, eventually, a highly developed region in China by 2030.

Risk Adjustment And Promoting Health Equity In Population-Based Payment: Concepts And Evidence.

The objective of risk adjustment is not to predict spending accurately but to support the social goals of a payment system, which include equity. Setting population-based payments at accurate predictions risks entrenching spending levels that are insufficient to mitigate the impact of social determinants on health care use and effectiveness. Instead, to advance equity, payments must be set above current levels of spending for historically disadvantaged groups. In analyses intended to guide such reallocations, we found that current risk adjustment for the community-dwelling Medicare population overpredicts annual spending for Black and Hispanic beneficiaries by $376-$1,264. The risk-adjusted spending for these populations is lower than spending for White beneficiaries despite the former populations' worse risk-adjusted health and functional status. Thus, continued movement from fee-for-service to population-based payment models that omit race and ethnicity from risk adjustment (as current models do) should result in sizable resource reallocations and incentives that support efforts to address racial and ethnic disparities in care. We found smaller overpredictions for less-educated beneficiaries and communities with higher proportions of residents who are Black, Hispanic, or less educated, suggesting that additional payment adjustments that depart from predictive accuracy are needed to support health equity. These findings also suggest that adding social risk factors as predictors to spending models used for risk adjustment may be counterproductive or accomplish little.

Una aproximación al coste presupuestario de universalizar la salud bucodental en España

ObjectiveTo make an approximation to an estimate of the impact that an increase in the portfolio of oral health benefits would have on public health spending, which would at least cover most of the therapeutic treatments that households currently pay for privately. MethodThis estimate is based on the level of expenditure on dental services of the Health Accounts System for the year 2020. The data of increased demand is extracted from a RAND's study on universalization of services. Then we carry out various linear projections of increased spending by introducing several linear co-payment assumptions to explore the impact of different mixed financing mechanisms. ResultsThe increase in the demand for treatment would be 47.54% with respect to the current level of spending and that, under the starting assumptions, the increase in public spending would reach some 5345 million euros. Various co-pay scenarios could reduce budget impact. ConclusionsDespite the improvement in the oral health of the Spanish population, there are still problems derived from the existence of a socioeconomic gradient that promotes the concentration of the presence and prevalence of diseases in the lowest socioeconomic levels. Extending the services of the oral-dental portfolio to attend to the entire population would increase public health spending by 0.48 points over GDP and, even so, Spanish public health spending would continue to be below the EU-27 average.

Government size and economic growth in African emerging economies: does the BARS curve exist?

PurposeThis study is aimed at testing the validity of the BARS theory and determining the threshold level at which excessive government expenditure hampers growth. The data from 10 African emerging economies from 1988 to 2019 were used.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology comprises several different stages. In the first stage, an Lagrange Multiplier (LM) type test was employed to find the appropriate transition variable among all the candidate variables to assess the linearity between government expenditure and economic growth and to find the sequence for selecting the order m of the transition function. The linearity test helped to identify the nature of the relationships between government expenditure and economic growth. In the second stage, the model evaluation was tested using the wild cluster bootstrap-Lagrange Multiplier (WCL-LM) test to assess appropriateness of the model. Thirdly, the Panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model with one regime was estimated to test the validity of the BARS curve.FindingsThe results revealed evidence of nonlinear effects between government expenditure and economic growth, where the size of the government spending was found to be a 27.84% share of GDP, above which government expenditure caused growth to decline in African emerging economies. The findings combined into an inverted U-shape relationship, in line with the BARS theory.Originality/valueThis study proposes that policy-makers ought to formulate prudent fiscal policies that encourage expenditure, which would improve growth for selected countries as their current level of spending is below the threshold. This might be done through: (1) a suitable investment portfolio and (2) spending more on infrastructure.

Uncovering the effect of local government debt brakes in Germany using synthetic controls

ABSTRACT Strategies for limiting public debt remain a constant issue in public policy and are set to become more salient considering the current high levels of public spending in response to the COVID-19 crisis. One noteworthy strategy has been the introduction of institutional debt brakes. Although public debt at the local level does not necessarily follow the same rules and trends as debt at the national level, debt brakes at the local level are not nearly as comprehensively covered by both public and scholarly debate. The adoption of voluntary debt brakes in several German municipalities in the last decade offers intra-state variance to assess their fiscal effectiveness. A generalised synthetic control analysis is applied to mitigate for the special challenges of causal attribution and rare treatment cases. This approach provides a clear result: on average debt brakes in their present form are unable to limit debt levels in the examined municipalities.

Understanding public support for Canadian aid to developing countries: The role of information

AbstractMotivationThe public needs to be better informed on the reasons for providing aid, especially that which supports the Sustainable Development Goals. How aid is framed by donors directly affects levels of public support.PurposeThe article investigates support for aid among English‐speaking Canadians, and how this varies by the framing of aid spending, socioeconomic markers, personal values and political engagement.Approach and methodsStatistical analysis is undertaken of data from a representative survey of English‐speaking Canadians on their knowledge and attitudes with respect to aid to developing countries. A particular focus of the analysis is the influence of the framing of aid spending on public support for aid spending, while controlling for the influence of socioeconomic factors.FindingsSupport for increased spending rises when spending is framed relative to the size of the economy, whether in dollar or percentage terms, rather than when framed relative to government taxation or spending. Providing information on the current level of aid spending also raises support for increased aid spending. Overall, when informed about the level of aid spending, most respondents support maintaining or increasing aid. Views on aid vary little by age, education and other socioeconomic markers. People’s values, however, did affect support for aid. Respondents who believe in “Canada first” were considerably more likely to support aid cuts than others. Those who see kindness as part of Canadian identity tend to favour aid, while those who see economic prosperity as part of national identity tend to want aid cuts. While voting intention does not affect views on aid, respondents who have been either politically active or involved in collective action on media/social media are a little more likely to favour increased aid.Policy implicationsThe findings confirm the importance of the framing of aid spending for designing and implementing programmes to inform, engage and elicit support from the public. Given how values influence public support for aid, engagement needs to be tailored to different target audiences.

The Effect of SNAP on the Composition of Purchased Foods: Evidence and Implications

We use detailed data from a large retail panel to study the effect of participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on the composition and nutrient content of foods purchased for at-home consumption. We find that the effect of SNAP participation is small relative to the cross-sectional variation in most of the outcomes we consider. Estimates from a model relating the composition of a household’s food purchases to the household’s current level of food spending imply that closing the gap in food spending between high- and low-SES households would not close the gap in summary measures of food healthfulness. (JEL D12, H75, I12, I18, L66)

Retirees in Profile: Evaluating Five Distinct Lifestyles in Retirement

Retirees in Profile: Evaluating Five Distinct Lifestyles in Retirement

The Distribution of School Spending Impacts

We use estimates across all known “credibly causal” studies to examine the distributions of the causal effects of public K12 school spending on test scores and educational attainment in the United States. Under reasonable assumptions, for each of the 31 included studies, we compute the same parameter estimate. Method of moments estimates indicate that, on average, a $1000 increase in per-pupil public school spending (for four years) increases test scores by 0.044 , high-school graduation by 2.1 percentage points, and college-going by 3.9 percentage points. The pooled averages are significant at the 0.0001 level. When benchmarked against other interventions, test score impacts are much smaller than those on educational attainment—suggesting that test-score impacts understate the value of school spending. The benefits to marginal capital spending increases take about five-to-six years to materialize, but after this, are similar to those of non-capital spending increases. The marginal spending impacts are much less pronounced for economically advantaged populations. Consistent with a cumulative effect, the educational attainment impacts are larger with more years of exposure to the spending increase. Average impacts are similar across a wide range of baseline spending levels—providing little evidence of diminishing marginal returns at current spending levels. To speak to generalizability, we estimate the variability across studies attributable to effect heterogeneity (as opposed to sampling variability). This heterogeneity explains about 40 and 70 percent of the variation across studies for educational attainment and test scores, respectively, which allows us to provide a range of likely policy impacts. A policy that increases per-pupil spending for four years will improve test scores 92 percent of the time, and educational attainment even more often. We find suggestive evidence consistent with small possible publication bias, but demonstrate that any effects on our estimates are minimal. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Biden Administration’s R&D Budget Priorities

The article revealed that J. Biden's program, with which he approached the 2020 elections, was distinguished by increased attention to issues of innovative development. The President of the United States emphasized the focus on a significant increase in federal investments in R&D and advanced manufacturing. J. Biden plans to focus on supporting socially oriented science and technology policy that aims to revive economically disadvantaged regions and provide economic opportunities to socially vulnerable segments of the population, including racial minorities. It has been established that, unlike D. Trump, for whom the priority was increasing defense R&D funding, J. Biden prefers federal funding for nondefense R&D and applied research. This is confirmed by the data presented in the White House budget request for FY 2022. Among the priorities of science and technology policy, J. Biden identifies advanced manufacturing programs, climate research, quantum and advanced communication technology, energy and biotechnology, and health research projects. President Biden’s American Jobs Plan would roughly double the current annual level of federal spending on research infrastructure, including for rural development. It can provide a tangible boost to the development of science and technology and strengthen the growth trend in R&D intensity, which in 2019 for the first time in U.S. history exceeded 3% of GDP. There is a strong possibility that Congress will approve this massive project in terms of investment in science with bipartisan support. But the question of the extent to which this plan will be implemented against the background of budget restrictions and projected budget revenues remains open.

The Link between Structural Quality Indicators in Pre-primary and PISA Science Literacy Skills: A Cross-Country Comparison

The main aim of this study was to make a comparison across distinct countries to investigate the relationship between several quality indicators in pre-primary education and children’s subsequent science competency in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) between 2000-2015 years. The cross-national indicators that were used were obtained from previous records, including public and private expenditure, pupil-teacher ratio, enrollment rate, duration, age of beginning in pre-primary education, individual countries' adult literacy rates, and income per capita. The results showed that the relationship between public expenditure, pupil-teacher ratio, income per capita, adult literacy rate and children’s subsequent science performance on the PISA were positively statistically significant at a country-level. One of the important implications of the current study is that countries that spend less (which include Turkey) should plan a detailed pre-primary expenditure agenda for the public sector and raise their current level of public spending.

Factors influencing the extent of local public spending through contracting-out and intermunicipal contracting in New York: focusing on institutional constraints, histories, and fiscal capacity

ABSTRACTThis research considered levels of public service spending according to the alternative service arrangements, and examined how the property tax cap as an external constraint, local histories, and local fiscal capacity are related to the spending in the context of the state of New York. This study provides empirical evidence that the property tax cap positively influenced local spending through contracting out, while the same variable negatively affected the spending through intermunicipal contracting. Second, the previous level of public spending was positively associated with the current level of public spending through contracts with other municipalities, but this is not the case for contracts with nongovernmental providers. In addition, in deciding the extent of public spending through contracting out, local government officials were influenced by the factors of fiscal capacity, indicated by budget solvency and tax revenues.

Recent Debates on Public-Private Cost Sharing for Higher Education in Japan

Abstract This essay reviews three books and one article about recent debates on public-private cost sharing for higher education in Japan. To mitigate the problems related to low fertility and a rapidly aging population, the Japanese government plans to implement a free tuition policy for higher education for students from less affluent households. These books and the article reveal the historical, political, and economic factors behind why Japan’s current level of public spending on higher education is lower than that of other OECD countries. They also reveal that household income remains one of the most important determinants of college advancement, and that a free tuition policy has the potential to increase enrollment in higher education. However, this essay argues that a deeper understanding of the demand for higher education based on empirical studies is needed to make the policy successful.

Bayer pledges ag R&D investment

Bayer has unveiled a package of measures that it claims will demonstrate it is a responsible company with sustainable products and a transparent approach. The measures follow a swath of negative publicity that has dogged the company since its 2018 acquisition of Monsanto and a subsequent flurry of lawsuits linking Roundup, Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide, to cancer. Underpinning the package is Bayer’s pledge to spend €5 billion (about $5.5 billion) over the next decade on novel herbicide technologies. Over time, it will be equivalent to about 15% of the firm’s annual R&D budget at current spending levels. The money will fund chemistry R&D, new seed and plant traits, plant breeding, and digital farming technologies. Along with other activities, the measures are intended to reduce the ecological footprint of Bayer’s agricultural portfolio 30% by 2030, the firm says. Bayer will evaluate its progress using the Environmental Impact Quotient, a measuring system that

The Effect of SNAP on the Composition of Purchased Foods: Evidence and Implications

We use detailed data from a large retail panel to study the effect of participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on the composition and nutrient content of foods purchased for at-home consumption. We find that the effect of SNAP participation is small relative to the cross-sectional variation in most of the outcomes we consider. Estimates from a model relating the composition of a household’s food purchases to the household’s current level of food spending imply that closing the gap in food spending between high- and low-SES households would not close the gap in summary measures of food healthfulness. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Potential determinants of health system efficiency: Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean.

This paper examines the levels of health system efficiency and their possible determinants across Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries using national-level data for those countries, as well as for other emerging and developed countries. The data are analyzed using data envelopment analyses and econometric advances that yield reliable estimations of the relationship between system efficiency and its potential determinants. We find that there is substantial room for efficiency improvements in the health system of most LAC countries. For example, LAC countries could improve life expectancy at birth by about five years on average at current public spending levels if they followed best practices. Furthermore, the paper assesses what factors amenable to policy act as the main possible levers for some countries to be able to translate a given level of health financing into better performance on access to care and health outcomes. Our econometric analyses suggest that efforts to increase health system efficiency could be focused in a few key policy areas associated with broader access to health services and better outcomes. These areas include general governance aspects, in addition to improvements in specific dimensions of the quality of health system institutions, notably stronger reliance on results-based management in the production of healthcare goods and services.

How information affects support for education spending: Evidence from survey experiments in Germany and the United States

To study whether current spending levels and public knowledge of them contribute to transatlantic differences in policy preferences, we implement parallel survey experiments in Germany and the United States. In both countries, support for increased education spending and teacher salaries falls when respondents receive information about existing levels. Treatment effects vary by prior knowledge in a manner consistent with information effects rather than priming. Support for salary increases is inversely related to salary levels across American states, suggesting that higher salaries could explain much of Germans' lower support for increases. Information about the tradeoffs between specific spending categories shifts preferences from class-size reduction towards alternative purposes. Additional German experiments indicate that information effects extend to specific reform proposals and to other areas of public spending.

The UK Economy: Forecast Summary

The UK economy is facing an unusual level of uncertainty because of Brexit. This uncertainty primarily stems from the yet to be defined relationship between the UK and the EU but also from the economy's response to the new framework once it emerges. The UK government's White Paper, which set out its preferences for that new relationship, has failed to unite the government or Parliament, leaving open an entire spectrum of possible outcomes.Our central forecast under a ‘soft Brexit’ scenario is that the economy will grow at a pace that is consistent with its potential. This translates to annual GDP growth of 1.4 per cent this year and 1.7 per cent next year, which is broadly unchanged from our previous forecast. The risks to our GDP growth forecast are wider than before and tilted to the downside.As before, we condition our forecast on a gentle path of monetary policy normalisation with the next 25 basis point rate increase this month. On the fiscal side, we recommend that the government maintains its current level of spending (as a share of GDP) and raises the quality of public services.

What Role Does Efficiency Play in Understanding the Relationship Between Cost and Quality in Physician Organizations?

The belief that there is inefficiency, or the potential to improve patient health at current levels of spending, is driving the push for greater value in health care. Previous studies demonstrate overuse of a narrow set of services, suggesting provider inefficiency, but existing studies neither quantify inefficiency more broadly nor assess its variation across physician organizations (POs). We used data on quality of care and total cost of care from 129 California POs participating in a statewide value-based pay-for-performance program. We estimated a production function with quality as the output and cost as the input, using a stochastic frontier model, to develop a measure of relative efficiency for each PO. To validate the efficiency measure, we examined correlations of PO efficiency estimates with indicators representing overuse of services. The estimated production function showed that PO quality was positively associated with costs, although there were diminishing marginal returns to spending. A certain minimum level of spending was associated with high quality even among efficient POs. Most strikingly, however, POs had substantial variation in efficiency, producing widely differing levels of quality for the same cost. Differences among POs in the efficiency with which they produce quality suggest opportunities for improvements in care delivery that increase quality without increasing spending.

Budgeting for climate change: obstacles and opportunities at the US state level

ABSTRACTState governments in the United States are well placed to identify opportunities for mitigation and the needs for adaptation to climate change. However, the cost of these efforts can have important implications for budgets that already face pressures from diverse areas such as unfunded pensions and growing health care costs. In this work, the current level of spending on climate-related activities at the state level are evaluated and policy recommendations are developed to improve financial management practices as they relate to climate risk. An examination of state budgets reveals that climate mitigation and adaptation activities represent less than 1% of spending in most states. The data collection highlights the obstacles to collecting accurate spending data and the lack of budgetary and accounting procedures in place. More importantly, the difficulty in benchmarking these activities poses challenges for the analysis of state-level policies as well as planning and modelling future climate-related spending. Other policy contexts, including public pensions and infrastructure, can provide guidance on budgetary and accounting tools that may help states prepare for and more efficiently manage climate-related expenditures.Key policy insightsClimate change mitigation and adaptation will require substantial investments across many levels of government on a wide range of activities.Currently, US states are not clearly demarcating climate expenditures, hindering the identification of climate-related budgetary risks.In the absence of guidelines, these longer term fiscal outlays may remain chronically underfunded in favour of more near-term spending priorities.Establishing appropriate financial management and data collection practices is important for more sophisticated cost-effectiveness and policy analyses.