PREM Notes

176 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9424

This note series is intended to summarize good practices and key policy findings on poverty reduction and economic management (PREM) topics.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 42

Implementing Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys for Results : Lessons from a Decade of Global Experience

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11) Gurkan, Asli ; Kaiser, Kai ; Voorbraak, Doris

Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) can serve as a powerful tool to inform prevailing public financial management (PFM) practices and the extent to which government budgets link to execution and desired service delivery objectives and beneficiaries. Since the first PETS in Uganda in 1996, tracking exercises have now been conducted in over two dozen other countries, often as part of core analytical and advisory work related to PFM. This note synthesizes the findings and lessons from a number of recent PETS stocktaking exercises and indicates their potential benefits for enriching PFM and sectoral policy dialogues in a variety of country settings. Key findings include: (i) PETS have proven to be useful as part of a broader policy strategy aimed at improving service delivery results; (ii) PETS has become a brand name for very different instruments, but at its core there is a survey methodology that requires skilled technical expertise and a solid knowledge of budget execution processes; (iii) policy impact in a variety of PETS experiences could be further strengthened by stronger country ownership and effective follow-up; and (iv) the Bank could enhance PETS results through strategic partnering, and greater emphasis on dissemination and communication strategies aimed at involving actors who can foster actions on the ground.
The Pattern of Antidumping and Other Types of Contingent Protection

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-10) Bown, Chad P.

Many of the major economies in the multilateral, rules-based trading system find themselves in a situation in which their applied tariff rates are quite close to the tariff binding levels that form their legal commitments at the World Trade Organization (WTO). This implies that they cannot simply raise applied tariff rates to respond to domestic industry demands for additional trade barriers to protect them from imports. One of the fundamental and potentially WTO-legal ways in which national governments can respond to domestic industry calls for additional protection from imports is by resorting to trade 'remedy' policy instruments such as antidumping, safeguards, and countervailing duty (anti-subsidy) policies. This note, which describes newly collected data made available through the World Bank-sponsored global antidumping database, reports on the combined use of such policies, comprehensively collected across the major WTO member economies.
Fiscal Policy for Growth

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-04) Ley, Eduardo

While the term 'fiscal space' is new, the issue is quite old. Fiscal space refers to availability of budgetary resources for a specific purpose, typically growth-enhancing investment uses, without jeopardizing the sustainability of the government's financial position, or the stability of the economy. The recent interest in fiscal space originated as a reaction to International Monetary Fund (IMF), supported fiscal-adjustment programs that by focusing too narrowly on fiscal-deficit targets often ignored the quality of the underlying adjustment. Affected countries meanwhile advocated for fiscal space for investments in physical and human infrastructure crucial for economic growth. The IMF independent evaluation office, in their study on fiscal Adjustment in IMF supported programs acknowledged this problem, observing that 'much of the fiscal adjustment achieved is through measures that do not assure long-term sustainability and flexibility of fiscal systems to future shocks'. In effect, the improvement of the fiscal balance in the context of IMF-supported programs too often relied heavily in cuts in public investment that improve today's government cash flow at the expense of future economic growth.
The Crisis Resilience of Services Trade

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-04) Borchert, Ingo ; Mattoo, Aaditya ; Mattoo, Aaditya

The current gloom and doom about goods trade has obscured the quiet resilience of services trade. Services account for over one fifth of global cross-border trade, and for some countries such as India and the United States close to a third of all exports. New data on cross-border trade from the United States reveals that since mid-2008, trade in goods declined drastically but trade in some services is holding up remarkably well. More aggregate data available for other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries also suggests that services trade has suffered less from the crisis than goods trade. Initial evidence suggests that services trade is buoyant relative to goods trade for two reasons: demand for a range of traded services is less cyclical, and services trade and production are less dependent on external finance. If further investigation confirms that trade in certain services is inherently less affected by crises, then these services could play a more prominent role in developing countries' diversification strategies. The apparent resilience of services trade may be jeopardized by protectionism. Even though few explicitly trade-restrictive measures have so far been taken in services, the changing political climate and the widening boundaries of the state in crisis countries could introduce a national bias in firms' choices regarding procurement and the location of economic activity.
Linking Fiscal Policy and Growth in PER Reports : An Operational Framework for Low-Income Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-03) Moreira, Emmanuel Pinto

This note describes a framework for linking fiscal policy and growth issues in low-income countries. The framework has been developed in the context of a recently, completed Public Expenditure Management and Financial Accountability Review (PEMFAR) report in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. The note describes first the framework and then illustrates its application to fiscal reform and growth prospects in the context of Haiti. The note concludes by laying out an agenda for developing this framework further, ideally to facilitate use of this framework in preparing more Public Expenditure Reviews (PERs) and elaborating medium-term budget frameworks.
On the Marriage Between Public Spending and Growth : What Else Do We Know?

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-03) Moreno-Dodson, Blanca

While there are strong theoretical arguments for ways in which public spending influences growth, robust empirical links have been difficult to establish. More recently, many of the methodological problems that plagued the earlier literature have been overcome and interesting policy lessons drawn. The number of studies of developing countries using these new approaches is still limited, due to data scarcity and other comparability issues, but overall findings from the new literature are relevant for developing country policy makers and also open new venues for future research. The objective of this note is to present these new empirical results together with the methodological improvements that support them, and to outline some of the issues that need deeper analysis and empirical study, particularly in developing countries.
A Stocktaking of PRSPs in Fragile States

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-11) Dudwick, Nora ; Nelsson, Adam

In 1999, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) introduced poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) as a condition for highly indebted countries to receive debt relief under the HIPC initiative. Since then, PRSPs have become a condition for aid to International Development Association (IDA) countries, for which they are considered instrumental in refocusing attention on poverty, democratizing policy making, and improving donor coordination. While PRSPs may play that role in many IDA countries, their usefulness in fragile states, including those just emerging from conflict, has been questioned. Increased donor attention to the specific problems of such states was the impetus for a Poverty Reduction Group (PRMPR) stocktaking of PRSPs in fragile environments.
Pro-Poor Public Spending Reform : Uganda's Virtual Poverty Fund

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-03) Williamson, Tim ; Canagarajah, Sudharshan

The Poverty Action Fund (PAF) was introduced in Uganda in 1998 to reorient government expenditures towards implementing its Poverty Education Action Plan (PEAP) as well as to account for Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) resource use. This paper notes the successes of the PAR, the negative aspects, and the key lessons learned. Successes include: reorienting budget allocations towards pro-poor service delivery and demonstrating the additionality of debt relief; mobilizing donor resources and harmonizing conditions; and improved budget predictability, transparency, and accountability. The negative aspects include: unbalanced budget allocations, biased budget implementation, partial monitoring and evaluation, and no exit strategy. The key lessons were: To be effective, a Virtual Poverty Fund (VPF) should be simple and limited to the identification of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) priority expenditures in the budget classification system; a VPF should be introduced in a way that supports rather than replaces the implementation of such comprehensive improvements in budget preparation and implementation; and a VPF does not bypass the need to have a PRSP and an effective budget process that identify priority pro-poor expenditures to be included in the VPF as part of a broader policy framework for growth and poverty reduction.
PREM Anchor Support to the Africa Region

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-03) Leipziger, Danny

The note reviews the support of the Africa Action Plan (AAP), through the work of the PREM - Poverty Reduction and Economic Management - Anchor, which actively stepped up its support to the Africa Region (AFR) in fiscal year 2006 (FY06). Activities have included knowledge generation, high-level policy support on missions, the development of toolkits and diagnostics to improve policy advice on growth strategies, among others. Most of this work has been provided on a demand-driven basis, and PREM plans to continue providing such services, subject to its budgetary and skills capacity. The note therefore illustrates how the PREM Anchor's support to the AFR connects with the objectives of the AAP.
Modeling Pay and Employment

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-02) Nunberg, Barbara ; Green, Amanda ; Reid, Gary

Bank support for civil service reform (CSR) in developing countries used to focus mainly on improving government pay, and employment practices. In recent years, CSR programs have sought a broader set of management improvements. But getting public pay and employment right is still fundamental: establishing appropriate civil service employment dimensions, and providing rewarding-but affordable-remuneration for public servants remains a formidable challenge for many countries. Pay policies need to be fiscally responsible, but also attractive enough to draw the best talent into the public sector. In addition, such policies must be politically feasible; governments need to support difficult reforms that can survive implementation without being undermined or derailed. The Civil Service Pay and Employment Model (CSPEM) was created to help governments develop realistic civil service pay and employment strategies, and to enhance policy discussions within government, and between government and donors on these important reforms. This note describes early lessons of experience with civil service pay and employment modeling tools.