Public Service Spending: Efficiency and Distributional Impact—Lessons from Asia
Lavado, Rouselle F.; Domingo, Gabriel Angelo | July 2015
Abstract
Efficiency and equity are cornerstone concepts in rational service delivery in the public sector. This paper
benchmarks efficiency and equity in public spending on health, education, and social protection in a broad
group of Asian Development Bank (ADB) member economies with varying levels of development. We describe
public expenditure trends in health, education, and social protection in the region. Following Herrera and
Pang (2005), we conduct a formal efficiency benchmarking exercise using Data Envelopment Analysis and
available input and output data from World Development Indicators, Government Finance Statistics, and
ADB databases to deconstruct each member economy’s efficiency changes in health and education spending.
We next turn to review service provision inequality within ADB economies using utilization rates and benefit
incidence, and note the deficiency of pro-poor spending in some sectors.
Citation
Lavado, Rouselle F.; Domingo, Gabriel Angelo. 2015. Public Service Spending: Efficiency and Distributional Impact—Lessons from Asia. © Asian Development Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/11540/5040. License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.ISSN
2313-6537 (Print), 2313-6545 (e-ISSN)
Keywords
Public Sector
Economic Development
Infrastructure projects
Public Service
Public Administration
Investment of public funds
Public Management
Public Expenditure
Government
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Citable URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11540/5040Metadata
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