Economic development depends heavily on the growth of social sectors like education, healthcare, gender equality, as well as factors like income, consumption, investment and trade. This book examines the interlinkages between development, good governance and spending on social growth. The book focuses on different areas of social growth, public welfare and poverty reduction including managing human resources, corruption in public institutions and public spaces as well as health and welfare measures. The chapters in the volume highlight the role of government interventions in boosting human development – particularly in developing countries in Asia and Africa and many developed countries in the post-COVID scenario. The book also examines the foundations of government spending on development and effective governance while underlining the impact which social growth has on the economy. Rich in theoretical and empirical perspectives, this book will be useful for students and researchers of economics, sociology, political studies, public finance, development studies as well as for policymakers and think tanks working in the areas of human development.

This volume explores the impact of good governance upon social sectors’ development in India and other selected economies of the world. Economic development in the true sense depends on the development of different social sectors like education, healthcare, gender equality, etc., as well as economic factors. Good governance makes the sectors perform well on the one hand, and helps in economic growth and development on the other. Conversely, bad or weak governance in the form of corruption and low effectiveness of the governments, may lead to poor performance of the sectors, and low growth and backwardness of the economies. This book explores the associations between different social sectors’ performances with quality of governance, and growth and development of different economies and groups in detail and establishes theoretical and empirical examinations for the individual economies and groups from the different corners of the globe with the help of new theories and latest data. This book will be useful for students and researchers in the fields of Economics, Sociology, Political Studies, Public Finance, International Relations, Social Sciences as well as policy makers and think tanks.

Using panel data from 120 developing countries from 1975 to 2000, this paper explores the direct and indirect channels linking social spending, human capital, and growth in a system of equations. The paper finds that both education and health spending have a positive and significant direct impact on the accumulation of education and health capital, and thus can lead to higher economic growth. The paper also finds that other policy interventions, such as improving governance, reducing excessive budget deficits, and taming inflation, can also be helpful in moving countries toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As such, higher spending alone is not sufficient to achieve the MDGs.

Using panel data from 120 developing countries from 1975 to 2000, this paper explores the direct and indirect channels linking social spending, human capital, and growth in a system of equations. The paper finds that both education and health spending have a positive and significant direct impact on the accumulation of education and health capital, and thus canlead to higher economic growth. The paper also finds that other policy interventions, such as improving governance, reducing excessive budget deficits, and taming inflation, can also be helpful in moving countries toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As such, higher spending alone is not sufficient to achieve the MDGs.

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 presents evidence on the political and economic determinants of social sector spending from a panel dataset. The principal finding is that democratization in countries, as measured by within-country variation in subjective indices of democracy, is a significant predictor of government spending on education and health. The relationship is robust to controlling for a variety of factors and the estimated magnitudes suggest that an increase from the lowest to the highest rating for democracy for a country is associated with approximately 1 percent more central government spending and 3 percent more general government spending in social sectors, as a percent of GDP.

Drawing upon both conceptual and empirical evidence, this volume argues the case for the centrality of social policy in development, focusing particularly on the message that social policy needs to be closely intertwined with economic policy. It is argued that social policy can provide the crucial link between economic development poverty eradication and equity. This volume is a significant contribution to thinking about social policy in a development context.