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In recent times, Africa has experienced remarkable economic growth; nonetheless, this advancement remains far from being considered inclusive, given the persistently high levels of poverty and income inequality across the continent. To this end, this study investigates the role of fiscal policy measures on inclusive growth using absolute and relative pro-poor measures of growth. The study utilizes panel data from 48 African countries spanning the period 1996 to 2020 and employs the Panel System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique for analysis. Estimation results reveal a concerning trend where public debt service exacerbates both poverty and income inequality, underscoring the adverse consequences of mounting public debt pressures in the region. Interestingly, while government expenditure reduces inequality and worsens poverty, an increase in taxation reduces poverty but worsens income inequality. Further, an increase in taxation negatively affects the income shares of the bottom and middle-income groups while the top-income groups benefit. The findings of this study have significant policy implications for improving inclusive growth in the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the nexus among government revenue, government expenditure, and gross domestic product (GDP) across time and/or frequency using a Ghana dataset. It applies the wavelet approaches to investigate the lead-lag nexus, degree of integration and interdependency among public expenditure, public revenue, and gross domestic product (GDP) in the Ghanaian context. The data source is the World Bank and consists of yearly data from 1983 to 2021 yielding 39 observations. While public expenditure and revenue are closely related, and mostly positive throughout both time and frequency, there is a nexus between public spending and revenue at specific intervals and on a regular basis that was bi-directional, bi-causal, and interdependent. Between 1993 and 2021, a bi-directional nexus could be seen; however, most of the arrows pointed to the right. This shows that the co-movements between public spending and revenue are positive and behave similarly as a result. Accordingly, it is anticipated that increased levels of public spending will be met by higher levels of public spending, and vice versa. This is the first application of a wavelet approach to the study of this phenomenon with a Ghana dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of long-run government expenditure and economic growth in different states in South Africa. Economic growth has been below the policy target of 5% stipulated in the National Development Plan Vision 2030, while government expenditure growth has been volatile but increasing at a decreasing rate. The paper uses the Vector-error correction (VEC) and Markov-switching dynamic regression with the data from 1994 to 2021. The significance of the paper is that it assesses the short and long-run impacts of government expenditure on different states of economic growth in South Africa. It is found that more government expenditure in South Africa hasn't resulted in the nation's economy growing, which is at odds with the Keynesian viewpoint. In both lower economic states, government expenditure reduces economic growth by 0.009% and 0.30%. The economy is expected to stay for 1 year in state 1, while it is expected to stay for 13 years in state 2. Government expenditure shocks were found to be detrimental to economic growth. It is recommended that fiscal authorities increase government expenditure in the short run rather than in the long run and monitor government expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing public debate on fiscal surprise during election periods in jurisdictions where the democratic dispensation is young, comprehensive empirical works to this effect in the case of Africa are hard to find. This study, therefore, sought to contribute to the debate on two counts. First, the study examines the effect of elections on debt servicing in Africa. Second, the study investigates the joint effect of economic development and elections on debt servicing in Africa. Using data drawn from the World Bank's World Development Indicators over the period 1985–2015 for 43 African countries, the study provides evidence from the dynamic system GMM and the ordinry least squares estimators to show that— (1) election periods are associated with lower debt servicing in Africa, and (2) economic development is significant in enhancing debt servicing commitments even in election periods. Policy recommendations are provided in line with the growing levels of debt accumulation and unemployment in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that healthcare spending in Kazakhstan increased annually from 2011 to 2020, the country's healthcare system is seriously underfunded. For this reason, household spending in Kazakhstan plays a significant role in overall health spending. According to WHO, if the share of private spending in total health care spending does not exceed 20%, the health care system can be considered sustainable. The risk of a decrease in the purchasing power of the population increases in cases where this indicator is exceeded, which in turn leads to negative consequences for the population itself. Therefore, the Government of Kazakhstan needs to take decisive measures to reduce the "out-of-pocket expense" of the population for health care, especially the cost of purchasing medicines. Effective government policy, timely reforms and mutually beneficial cooperation with pharmaceutical market actors can reduce the level of "out-of-pocket expenses" of the population for health care to generally accepted world indicators. Based on this, the study of different views on solving problems related to public and private spending in health care, price regulation and building an effective drug pricing system is an important condition for building an effective health care system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between public sector expenditure and economic growth for several decades past is still relevant today and continues to be a topic of debate among policy-makers and researchers. We examine the impact of government expenditure on economic growth in Ghana using data from 1970 to 2016, employing ARDL econometric estimation technique. The empirical findings indicate that, government expenditure has a positive relationship with economic growth in the short-run. The results further show that, Gross Capital Formation and Foreign Direct Investment show a significant positive relationship with economic growth in both the short-run and long-run. However, population growth reveals a significant negative relationship with economic growth (GDP Growth). We recommend government to increase public expenditure on profitable projects since it promotes economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a vast literature has appeared on the relationship between fiscal policy and long-run economic growth. With the aim to give an overview of the recent discussion and establish a point of departure for future research, this study used time series techniques and rigor empirical model to investigate the link between various components of fiscal policy on Ethiopia's economic growth on annual data for 35 years. It employed the autoregressive distributed lag estimation technique. Results from the bound tests showed that there was a long-run relationship between the variables. Disaggregating government expenditure into productive and unproductive and tax revenue into distortionary and non-distortionary, this study found unproductive expenditure and non-distortionary tax revenue to be neutral to growth as predicted by economic theory. Moreover, productive expenditure has a positive effect on growth while there was evidence of distortionary effects on growth of distortionary taxes. These results give the right signal topolicymakers in Ethiopia in formulating expenditure and tax policies to ensure unproductive expenditures are reduced while at the same time boosting public investment. Furthermore, there is need to encourage private investment in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the impact of fiscal policy on the South African economy during the period 1972Q1-2020Q2. The study adopted quarterly time series data to estimate a Bayesian Vector Autoregression (BVAR) model with the selection of hierarchical priors. The variables employed for empirical investigation included GDP, government expenditure, public debt, and gross fixed-capital formation. The results of the study show that an unexpected shock in government expenditure and public debt has a significant negative and persistent impact on economic growth in South Africa, while an unexpected shock in investment has a significant positive effect on economic growth. The findings suggest that escalating public expenditure and public debt lead to economic contraction. This implies that policy-makers ought to be cautious of excessive government expenditure and public debt to achieve fiscal consolidation. Policy-makers ought to focus on addressing structural challenges through the implementation of sound structural reform policies that aim to attract investment consistent with job creation, development and growth in South Africa's economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study contributes to the political economy debate in Africa by examining the extent to which economic development mediates the effect of elections on government expenditure. To this end, the study employs macrodata spanning 1985–2015 on 43 African countries for the analysis. Robust evidence from the system GMM estimator shows that: (1) election periods significantly induce government expenditure in Africa, and (2) economic development is significant in reducing the use of fiscal surprise in election periods. Policy recommendations are provided in the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Indonesia has been experiencing relatively considerable and stable economic growth in the last decades, the country is prone to income disparity across regions due to uneven distribution of population, natural resources and the persistent impacts of centralized development imposed by the New Order regime. This study examines the economic growth convergence in East Java, Indonesia, from 2010 to 2019 and explores the influence of government expenditure on education, health, and capital sector on the economic growth convergence. By considering spatial dependence across regions, the result shows no strong evidence of regional income convergence in East Java. Also, this research claims the presence of spillover effect of government expenditure on education and capital sector on regional income growth. Notably, higher government expenditure of the education sector in one region could stimulate higher economic growth of its neighboring regions. Conversely, higher government expenditure on the capital sector in one region may lower the economic growth of its surrounding regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, oil has been the main source of earnings in the Saudi Arabian economy. Different from other symmetric oil price shock studies, the aim of this paper is to test the impacts of symmetric oil price shocks on government expenditure-real exchange rate nexus and ultimately, to check the conformity of symmetric oil price shock findings to those prevailing in literature. To achieve this endeavor, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) have been employed for the period of 1970 to 2018. The goal of carrying out ARDL and SVAR together is to consolidate and strengthen the consistency of the results obtained from both approaches. Our models' findings support the short-run appreciation of the real exchange rate as a reaction to symmetric oil price shocks and to real government expenditure. The latter finding, though is consistent with Dutch disease predictions. However, in the long-run symmetric oil price shocks negate the real exchange rate. The directional map of causality is as follows: symmetric oil price shocks impact the total earnings of the Saudi government and hence, government spending. Thereafter, the composition of expenditure causes an appreciation of the real exchange rate. Policymakers should consider oil price fluctuations as a source of disturbance to government earnings. Solutions could be carried out by benefiting from other countries' experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nigeria, the government activities vis-à-vis public expenditure has grown rapidly both in absolute, relative and as a share of GDP over the years. These growths in government expenditure have been due to certain factors which are believed to have significant effect on the fiscal operation of the country. These perceived implications of government expenditure expansion on the economy necessitate the need to understand factors that are responsible for the growth in government expenditure size. For that, the study employs a slightly modified version of Wagner's law by incorporating new variables such as oil revenue, trade openness, public debt, exchange rate, oil price, taxation and inflation—to examine their effect on government expenditure size. The study uses time series data for Nigeria spanning between 1970 and 2017. Time series data were analysed using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. The findings of the study reveal that oil revenue, GDP, population, trade openness, oil price, taxation and inflation are important determinants of the size of Nigeria's government expenditure. The study recommends among others that the revenue base of the country should be diversified beyond oil sector, strengthening of fiscal and monetary policies to ensure stability in price level and exchange rate, the use of fiscal rule through excess crude oil account should also be strengthened to create buffer against fluctuation in oil price and as well appropriate population reduction policies should be undertaken to curtail rapid population growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]