How does government expenditure impact sustainable development? Studying the multidimensional link between budgets and development gaps

Bibliographic Data

ID12950702
AuthorsOmar Guerrero (0000-0001-9830-6355, The Alan Turing Institute, corresponding author), Gonzalo Castañeda (0000-0001-9193-7357, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas)
Year2022
Volume17
Issue3
Pages987-1007
Publication date2022-02-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSustainability Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1862-4057 • E-ISSN: 1862-4065
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s11625-022-01095-1
OpenAlexW4225904133
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited40

We develop a bottom-up causal framework to study the impact of public spending on high-dimensional and interdependent policy spaces in the context of socioeconomic and environmental development. Using data across 140 countries, we estimate the indicator-country-specific development gaps that will remain open in 2030. We find large heterogeneity in development gaps, and non-linear responses to changes in the total amount of government expenditure. Importantly, our method identifies bounds to how much a gap can be reduced by 2030 through sheer increments in public spending. We show that these structural bottlenecks cannot be addressed through expenditure on the existing government programs, but require novel micro-policies intended to affect behaviors, technologies, and organizational practices. One particular set of bottlenecks that stands out relates to the environmental issues contained in the sustainable development goals 14 and 15

Business · Context (archaeology · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental economics · Geography · Government (linguistics · Government Expenditure · Government spending · Interdependence · Macroeconomics · Natural resource economics · Political science · Public economics · Public expenditure · Public finance · Public policy · Public spending · Regional science · Socioeconomic development · Sustainable development · Climate Change Policy and Economics · Energy, Environment, Economic Growth · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access