Public expenditure policy, together with efforts to raise revenue,is at the core of efficient and equitable adjustment. Public expenditureproductivity has critical implications for fiscal adjustment, particularly as the competition for limited public resources intensifies.By providing a framework for defining and analyzing public expenditureproductivity and unproductive expenditures, this pamphlet discusseshow economic policymakers may approach these issues.

This handbook, edited by Ke-young Chu and Richard Hemming, offers guidance to officials formulating public policy recommendations, so that the aggregate level of public spending conforms with the economy's overall resource capacity. The handbook looks at the impact of public spending on the efficiency of resource use and explores the basis for distinguishing between productive and unproductive spending.

This paper assesses the efficiency of government expenditure on education and health in 38 countries in Africa in 1984-95, both in relation to each other and compared with countries in Asia and the Western Hemisphere. The results show that, on average, countries in Africa are less efficient than countries in Asia and the Western Hemisphere; however, education and health spending in Africa became more efficient during that period. The assessment further suggests that improvements in educational attainment and health output in African countries require more than just higher budgetary allocations.

Traditionally, economics training in public finances has focused more on tax than public expenditure issues, and within expenditure, more on policy considerations than the more mundane matters of public expenditure management. For many years, the IMF's Public Expenditure Management Division has answered specific questions raised by fiscal economists on such missions. Based on this experience, these guidelines arose from the need to provide a general overview of the principles and practices observed in three key aspects of public expenditure management: budget preparation, budget execution, and cash planning. For each aspect of public expenditure management, the guidelines identify separately the differing practices in four groups of countries - the francophone systems, the Commonwealth systems, Latin America, and those in the transition economies. Edited by Barry H. Potter and Jack Diamond, this publication is intended for a general fiscal, or a general budget, advisor interested in the macroeconomic dimension of public expenditure management.

Textbook on the economic theory of public expenditure - covers the concept of public interest, the growth of the public sector, economic policy, programme planning and budgeting, cost benefit analysis, public finance, fiscal policy, the conflict between centralization and decentralization, etc. References.