The role of the commodity price boom in shaping public social spending: Evidence from Latin America

IF 5.4 1区 经济学 Q1 DEVELOPMENT STUDIES World Development Pub Date : 2024-07-22 DOI:10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106717
Svenja Flechtner , Martin Middelanis
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Abstract

We study the potential impact of the commodity price boom of 2003 to 2013 on public social spending in Latin America. We estimate structural vector autoregressions and local projections for 16 Latin American countries over the period from 1990 to 2019 and investigate if we can attribute increases in public spending on health, education, and social protection to increases in a country’s net commodity terms-of-trade. By focusing on the impulse responses derived from country-specific estimations, we find a huge variety in response patterns. Our study finds that two countries experienced lasting increases in public social spending due to the commodity boom (Argentina, Ecuador). Some others observed at least temporary increases of few years (Brazil, Mexico), reacted first with declines and then rises (Chile), and yet others did not respond at all (Bolivia, Colombia, Peru). As expected, we cannot relate public social spending with commodity prices in countries without commodity price boom. Among countries with positive responses, there is no clear tendency concerning the function of spending that benefits most. We discuss potential explanations behind the heterogeneity of our country-wise results and conclude that the presence of left-wing governments, fiscal rules, natural resource funds and economic diversification provide plausible explanations for single country cases, but no general patterns emerge. We conclude that the commodity price boom was neither necessary nor sufficient for social policy expansion in Latin America, and factors explaining its effects differ from country to country. Our study highlights the importance of in-depth examinations of country-specific factors and the need of (currently lacking) high-quality time series data in development research.

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商品价格上涨对社会公共开支的影响:拉丁美洲的证据
我们研究了 2003 年至 2013 年商品价格上涨对拉丁美洲公共社会支出的潜在影响。我们对 16 个拉美国家 1990 年至 2019 年期间的结构向量自回归和本地预测进行了估算,并研究了我们能否将卫生、教育和社会保障公共支出的增长归因于一国商品净贸易条件的增长。通过关注从国别估算中得出的脉冲响应,我们发现响应模式存在巨大差异。我们的研究发现,有两个国家(阿根廷和厄瓜多尔)的公共社会支出因商品繁荣而持续增长。其他一些国家至少在数年内出现了暂时性增长(巴西、墨西哥),有的国家先下降后上升(智利),还有的国家则完全没有反应(玻利维亚、哥伦比亚、秘鲁)。不出所料,在没有商品价格上涨的国家,我们无法将公共社会支出与商品价格联系起来。在做出积极反应的国家中,在受益最大的支出功能方面没有明显的趋势。我们讨论了各国结果异质性背后的潜在解释,并得出结论:左翼政府、财政规则、自然资源基金和经济多样化的存在为单个国家的情况提供了合理的解释,但没有出现普遍的模式。我们的结论是,商品价格上涨对拉丁美洲社会政策的扩展既不是必要的,也不是充分的,解释其影响的因素因国家而异。我们的研究强调了深入研究具体国家因素的重要性,以及发展研究中(目前缺乏)高质量时间序列数据的必要性。
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来源期刊
World Development
World Development Multiple-
CiteScore
12.70
自引率
5.80%
发文量
320
期刊介绍: World Development is a multi-disciplinary monthly journal of development studies. It seeks to explore ways of improving standards of living, and the human condition generally, by examining potential solutions to problems such as: poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, disease, lack of shelter, environmental degradation, inadequate scientific and technological resources, trade and payments imbalances, international debt, gender and ethnic discrimination, militarism and civil conflict, and lack of popular participation in economic and political life. Contributions offer constructive ideas and analysis, and highlight the lessons to be learned from the experiences of different nations, societies, and economies.
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