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Public Budgets (public + budget)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	66%

Selected Abstracts

Social Insurance and the Public Budget

ECONOMICA, Issue 275 2002
Torben M. Andersen
Restraints on the public budget may limit the ability of the public sector to use financial markets for the diversification of shocks. This interferes with the role of the public budget as a buffer which may provide insurance by stabilizing income and thereby private consumption. We consider this insurance or stabilizing role of public budgets and show why pro-cyclical budgets and a progressive taxation system may be optimal even when tax distortions are taken into account. Balanced budget restrictions interfere with this insurance effect, and they do not necessarily imply that a lower level of public consumption is optimal. [source]

A General Empirical Law of Public Budgets: A Comparative Analysis

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 4 2009
Bryan D. Jones
We examine regularities and differences in public budgeting in comparative perspective. Budgets quantify collective political decisions made in response to incoming information, the preferences of decision makers, and the institutions that structure how decisions are made. We first establish that the distribution of budget changes in many Western democracies follows a non-Gaussian distribution, the power function. This implies that budgets are highly incremental, yet occasionally are punctuated by large changes. This pattern holds regardless of the type of political system,parliamentary or presidential,and for level of government. By studying the power function's exponents we find systematic differences for budgetary increases versus decreases (the former are more punctuated) in most systems, and for levels of government (local governments are less punctuated). Finally, we show that differences among countries in the coefficients of the general budget law correspond to differences in formal institutional structures. While the general form of the law is probably dictated by the fundamental operations of human and organizational information processing, differences in the magnitudes of the law's basic parameters are country- and institution-specific. [source]

Social Insurance and the Public Budget

Die Auswirkungen der demographischen Veränderungen auf die Budgetstrukturen der öffentlichen Haushalte

PERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 2 2007
Helmut Seitz
Special attention is given to differences between East and West Germany. Whereas East German state and local governments can expect significant savings from shrinking population size and from shifts in the age structure, subnational government budgets in the West are only slightly affected. Federal government spending will increase due to the rise in spending on the elderly. The results suggest that significant adjustments of public budgets at the expenditure side are necessary in order to cope with the fiscal challenges of demographic change. [source]

Switching statins in Norway after new reimbursement policy , a nationwide prescription study

BRITISH JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY, Issue 4 2007
Solveig Sakshaug
What is already known about this subject ,,Use of statins is growing worldwide and costs represent a burden to public budgets. ,,The introduction of simvastatin generics, generic substitution and price regulations have contributed to price reductions and resulted in overall cost reductions of statin use in Norway. What this study adds ,,New reimbursement regulations for statins in Norway in June 2005, making simvastatin the drug of choice, had a great impact on physicians' prescribing of statins. ,,Nearly 40% of the atorvastatin users switched to simvastatin during the 13-month period after implementation of the new regulations. ,,Among the new users of statins the proportion receiving simvastatin increased from 48% in May 2005 to 92% in June 2006. ,,The new regulations have reduced costs of statins, even though the prevalence of statin use has increased. Aims To assess the changes in prescribing of statins in Norway after implementation of the new reimbursement regulations for statins in June 2005. Methods Data were retrieved from the Norwegian Prescription Database covering the total population in Norway (4.6 million). Outcome measures were the proportion of atorvastatin users switching to simvastatin and changes in the proportion of new statin users receiving simvastatin. Based on retail costs for all statin prescriptions dispensed in Norway, expenditure was measured in Norwegian currency. Results One-year prevalences of statin use increased from 6.3 to 6.8% for women and from 7.5 to 8.1% for men from the year before to the year after the new statin regulations. Of atorvastatin users (N = 131 222), 39% switched to simvastatin during the 13-month period after the implementation. The proportion of switching was higher in women (41%) than in men (36%). In May 2005, 48% of the new statin users received simvastatin. The proportion of new users receiving simvastatin increased rapidly after implementation of the new regulations to 68% in June 2005 and reached 92% in June 2006. Expenditure was reduced from ,120 million to ,95 million when comparing the year before with the year after the new statin regulations. Conclusions The new reimbursement policy for statins has had a great impact on physicians' prescribing of statins in Norway. Physicians in Norway acknowledge the importance of contributing to cost containment. [source]