Direct Government Expenditure Research Articles

Cost analysis as a vitamin A program design and evaluation tool: a case study of the Philippines

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a serious and widespread public health problem in the Philippines. Initiated in 1993, the Philippines National Vitamin A Supplementation Program (NVASP) is one of the oldest, most mature and comprehensive of its kind. This paper presents a cost-effectiveness and efficiency analysis of the NVASP and of a hypothetical program of vitamin A fortification of wheat flour that was conducted to inform policymakers as to how to modify the program. Employing a proxy effectiveness indicator of VAD — the intake of <70% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A — in a series of simulations using individual child consumption data, the analysis finds that fortification is more efficient in reducing inadequate vitamin A intake (IVAI) compared to the NVASP. Due to the nature of food consumption patterns, however, fortification alone, is not enough. At what is regarded as the maximum politically acceptable fortification level, there will still be 2.2 million (29%) Filipino children aged 12–59 months who will have IVAI. An investigation of the cost and efficiency of geographically targeted supplementation programs reveals that maintaining a universal supplementation program in urban areas and, in rural areas, introducing a targeted program to only the poorest municipalities (where the prevalence of VAD is the highest) will provide a more acceptable public health policy response than fortification alone. Such a policy will reduce incremental direct Government expenditures on vitamin A programs by nearly 20% and will reduce the number of children with IVAI to 900,000 (12%) Filipino children. The paper describes the fortification and supplementation programs, and how their costs were estimated. Lessons for program designers and policymakers in other countries in which vitamin A deficiency constitutes a public health problem are also discussed.

ALBERTA IRRIGATION IN THE OLD AND NEW MILLENNIUM

This article gives an historical perspective on the development of irrigation. It places this history into four periods, each of which represents a particular combination of stakeholders: government, private corporations and water users, all interested in the maintenance or expansion of the system. The first period, from the mid-1890s to 1914, involved the federal government and private corporations. The Canadian Pacific Railway, the Alberta Irrigation Company (later renamed the Canadian North West Irrigation Company) and the Southern Alberta Land Company were the corporate partners of the federal government on the Bow and St. Mary Rivers. The decision of the CPR to reduce its role in irrigation development in 1914 resulted in the passage of the Irrigation District Act in 1915 and the inauguration of the second era of development. From 1915 to 1935 the farmers located adjacent to existing districts or in areas proposed for development by the federal government took the initiative to create irrigation districts and expand the irrigated acreage. The role of government during this period was to provide technical assistance. The provincial government provided guarantees for district bonds to encourage continued private investment in the industry. The third period began in 1935 with the creation of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration that resulted, for the first time, in direct government expenditures on irrigation infrastructure. The fourth period began in the 1960s when the water users and the provincial government became the principal stakeholders through the passage of the new irrigation act, and new programs such as the Irrigation Capital Works Program came into effect. The Act created the Bow River and the St. Mary River Irrigation Districts. The 1960s marked the total reorganization of the irrigation industry in Alberta. The changes ranged from new administrative procedures to the application of new technology for the delivery of water to the farm gate and its distribution on the land. The industry thus became progressively more efficient in its use of water and land. The trend towards greater efficiency will continue into the new millennium with the Year 2000 Steering Committee, a joint industry/government initiative to determine future water allocations on the South Saskatchewan River.

Macroeconomic Policy with a Floating Exchange Rate and a Unionised Non-Traded Sector

This paper considers the effect of a unionized nontraded sector on welfare and policy in an open economy. In equilibrium, there are endogenous wage and price setting, there may be unemployment, and non-Walrasian policy effects. Nominal wages and prices become pegged to the price of tradables. With direct government employment, the multiplier is unity irrespective of financing. With direct government expenditure on nontradables, the multiplier is less than unity. In both cases, an increase in government expenditure reduces welfare.

Initiatives and government expenditures

This paper demonstrates that provisions for initiatives have important effects on government spending. Provisions for initiatives encourage legislatures to approve any proposal which might attract substantial popular support. If these proposals are more likely to advocate increases than reductions in expenditures, the presence of initiative provisions will increase total expenditures. Direct government expenditures per capita are significantly higher in both states and municipalities which permit initiatives.

MEASURES OF TOTAL HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION

By expenditure on education, health, housing and other public services, governments provide many goods and services which are alternatives to, or additional to, household expenditure on consumption. In most Western national accounts, the two forms of consumption are rigidly separated. Yet the combination of the two–the concept of total household consumption–has obvious importance for the measurement and comparison of living standards and for the formulation and analysis of policy. This concept is recommended as an additional aggregate in the revised SNA. It is displayed in the UN International Comparison Project (ICP). It is used as a major aggregate (“total consumption of the population”), although hitherto generally excluding nonmaterial services, in the Material Product System. Yet it is rarely shown explicitly in Western national accounts. One reason is the slow progress in the analysis by purpose of government expenditure.This paper shows how far figures of total household consumption, and of its division between collective and private consumption, can in fact be derived, for the advanced countries, from the data provided to the UN Yearbook of National Accounts, supplemented b y the ICP. The results show first the wide national variations in the relation between the two forms of consumption but, secondly, the gaps in information on this crucially important topic. The relation between direct government expenditure for collective consumption and transfer payments to households (“social income”) is also examined. High and low levels of these two forms of State support to consumption reinforce each other almost as often as they offset each other. But, again, the data provided by national accounting statistics are very incomplete.This paper was prepared for the 16th General Conference of the IARIW, August 1979.

THE ECONOMIC WELFARE OF THE AGED AND INCOME SECURITY PROGRAMS*

This paper examines several nonmoney components of economic welfare in both a theoretical and an empirical framework, computes the distributional ranking of aged families arising from such a measure, and subsequently examines the target effectiveness of eleven programs of the U.S. federal government aimed at the aged. While the theoretical discussion attempts to cover all factors contributing to the economic welfare of the aged, the empirical measure is somewhat less comprehensive, excluding the value of nonmarket productive activities and leisure time as well as benefits derived from direct government expenditures and some in‐kind transfers and taxes. The study makes use of a subsample of the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity data composed of all families with at least one aged member. Specific attention is devoted to dissaving from net worth, in‐kind transfers, incidence of taxes, and intrafamily transfers. Government cash and in‐kind transfers are found to constitute a third of the total measured economic welfare of the aged, and the impact of each of these programs is examined individually. As might be expected, public assistance and public housing are the programs of most benefit to the aged poor. Medicaid and Medicare are substantially less so, and Social Security is distributionally neutral. Such programs as unemployment insurance are of little benefit to the aged. Tax expenditures, finally, provide no benefits to even the lower half of the distribution.

Tax Incentives as a Device for Implementing Government Policy: A Comparison with Direct Government Expenditures

Tax Incentives as a Device for Implementing Government Policy: A Comparison with Direct Government Expenditures