Expenditure Incidence in Africa: Microeconomic Evidence

Expenditure Incidence in Africa: Microeconomic Evidence

In this paper, we examine the progressivity of social sector expenditures in eight sub-Saharan African countries. We employ dominance tests, complemented by extended Gini/concentration coefficients, to determine whether health and education expenditures redistribute resources to the poor. We find that social services are poorly targeted. Among the services examined, primary education tends to b...

Fiscal Incidence in Africa: Microeconomic Evidence

Macroeconomic Evidence and Microeconomic Foundations

Price Rigidity: Microeconomic Evidence and Macroeconomic Implications

We review recent evidence on price rigidity from themacroeconomics literature and discuss how this evidence is used to inform macroeconomic modeling. Sluggish price adjustment is a leading explanation for the large effects of demand shocks on output and, in particular, the effects of monetary policy on output. A recent influx of data on individual prices has greatly deepenedmacroeconomists’ und...

Household expenditure patterns and resource pooling: evidence of changes in post-apartheid South Africa

The primary aim of this paper is to examine whether resources accruing to different members of the household and from different sources have differential impacts on household expenditure patterns. The issue is of considerable policy interest for, if the identity of the income recipient does matter in the household’s expenditure decisions, then it indicates the usefulness of targeting income ass...