Georgia Public Expenditure Review : Selected Fiscal Issues

World Bank Group

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: CREDIT PROGRAM;    GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES;    GOVERNOR;    POLICY ENVIRONMENT;    CITY;   

RP-ID  :  99559

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Georgia has an impressive growth recordbut social vulnerabilities persist. The current governmenthas therefore made spending on social sectors andagriculture a high priority and has launched adecentralization reform to support regional inclusivegrowth. It remains a challenge to tackle socialvulnerabilities within a sustained macroeconomic framework.The government has intensified its efforts to reduce socialvulnerability, as evidenced by the increase in socialspending from 7.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in2012, to 9.6 percent in 2014. As a result, the fiscaldeficit widened from 2.8 percent of GDP in 2012 to 3.0percent in 2014. This public expenditure review (PER)analyzes the impact of recent reforms including the socialprograms that were either introduced or scaled up in 2013.It gives an overview of the recent macroeconomic and fiscaldevelopments, including the fiscal implications of thesocial programs in chapter one. As requested by thegovernment, it addresses three questions in the rest of thereport: (1) has the realignment of spending toward socialsectors resulted in better distributional outcomes; (2) havethe agriculture support programs been targeted atproductivity growth to support real incomes in poor ruralregions; and (3) what is the fiscal and equity impact of theongoing decentralization process? The first question isaddressed by combining micro household survey data withadministrative fiscal data to analyze the distributionalimpact of both taxes and government spending on poverty andinequality in Georgia in chapter two. The second question isaddressed by comparing the cost of new agriculture programswith their estimated impact on agricultural productivity inchapter three. Finally, the issue of regional inequalitiesis partially addressed in this report by discussing threedifferent aspects of the current decentralization process:the expected fiscal impact of decentralization, the need torationalize current capital grant programs to make publicinvestment more effective, and the implications ofintroducing free preschool education administered at thelocal government level in chapter four.