my short essay (please help)

0Hello!02br
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00I have writen a short essay and I would be very thankful if someone could have a look at it. 05000))02br
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00Thank you sooo much!02br
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01b00Public expenditures02b02br
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00Policy efforts in terms of public expenditures vary across the states. It is critical to understand why this variance occurs and which factors spending influence and constitute in order to apply the figures meaningful. This essay outlines problems which are with the measure involved and why public expenditures should always just be one of a set of indicators in policy analyses.02br
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00Public Government Expenditure (GGE) is defined as the sum of spending by central government and local authorities excluding public corporations and national industries. In policy studies, public expenditures are often used as a measure of inputs which reflects national efforts in policy areas. Since absolute figures of public expenditures are not meaningful in comparative policy studies the expenditures are displayed as ratio to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country. The ratio solves the problem of comparability which occurs among countries with different currencies and product capacity. 02br
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00Heidenheimer outlines that “financial allotments reflect priorities among the party and governmental elites who make choices among projects, programs and policy areas”. Though it gives information on “the size and direction of governmental interventions” there are some problems with the measure involved. Some problems are involved by using this measure in policy studies which focus on policy input others are involved if public expenditure is applied as an indicator for policy throughputs, outputs and outcomes.02br
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00First, public expenditure is just one of the policy instruments. In some policy areas expenditures are a more meaningful measurement of national efforts on a cross-national basis (e.g. military) than in others (e.g. social sector). That is because governments have several instruments to archive policy objects. Depending on the area of policy the spectrum of instruments which is applied to attain the goals can vary. Furthermore the mix of policy instruments varies from country to country due to respective institutional differences. Occupational welfare is an example of mandatory transfer regulations like the payments of early pensions by employers.02br
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00Second, gross public expenditures do not take the impact of the fiscal system into account. Adema identifies for example three features of tax policy which can have an affect on public social expenditures: i) the levy of direct taxes and social security contributions on cash transfers, ii) indirect taxes in goods and services which are bought by beneficiaries, iii) tax relief like a awarding tax advantage. Hence, gross public expenditure in comparative statistics can be misleading because if the fiscal impact is taken into account social public spending across countries show a significant convergence.02br
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00Third, the inclusion of transfers in public expenditures but not in GDP which can produce misleading figures in an international comparison depending on the size of the transfers in one country.02br
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00Fourth, the institutional differences of financing forms vary from country to counrty so that public expenditure isn’t in every case a good indicator for the national efforts in policy areas. A good example is the financing of national education systems. Germany’s public expenditures have been researched in an international comparative survey 2003. German’s educational public expenditures to GDP are in comparison low. One reason for this is seen in the structure of the educational financing to what extend educational financing is state-run. In Germany and some other countries education is also financed by the private sector which includes private households, private foundations and private corporations. Private educational expenditures vary from country to country. South Korea showed the highest allotment of GDP in 1999. Like in other economically strong growing countries investments in education apply for trendsetting investments in human capital. In the case of Germany private educational expenditures are in the upper level in an OECD comparison in contrast to the countries public educational expenditures.02br
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00Fifth, the definition and classification of what counts as public transfers in one policy area can vary from country to country. Heidenheimer outlines the conceptual limitation of the measure of public expenditure by means of the vocational training (‘Berufsausbildung’) in Germany. The ‘Berufsausbildung’ is strongly regulated and includes a in-firm training and a of-the-job training. After redefining the apprentices from part-time to full-time scholars German’s public expenditure increased strongly. Hence, by analysing public expenditures in cross-country comparison one should be aware of definitions and classifications: what counts as public expenditures and what is omitted.02br
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00Sixth, the display of public expenditure as a ratio of GDP is also affected by “cross-country differences in stage of the economic cycle” which should be taken into account by applying this value. 02br
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00Caution is also advised by drawing any conclusions from public expenditures towards policy throughputs (number of operations carried out) or outputs which result from that spending because the spending doesn’t give any information on what can be afforded or how it is distributed. Furthermore the actual demand or need 01i00for it 02i00has to be taken into account. In Germany for example the relative low public educational spending are partly explained by the decreasing population in educational age: the number of people who constitutes the target group of the educational policies is in an OECD comparison under averaged (up to 25% under OECD average). Following that the demand for educational spending is lower in Germany than in other counties where the ratio of the people in an educational age constitutes a higher ratio of the population. Finally, the quality of what is being provided is not measured by figures of spending. Hence the link between figures of public expenditures to throughputs and outputs is tenuous.02br
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00Summing up, the ratio of public expenditures is one factor in policy analysis but it should be used carefully and in combination with other indicators in order to provide more meaningful information. Thus by relying unduly on state expenditure the result of any policy study can produce a distorted image of policy efforts. In this regard Heidenheimer emphasis that “the indicator reporting system should have a strong conceptual organisation that captures both established means-end relations from social science and the best clinical expertise”. Anderson goes even further by arguing that public expenditure should be excluded as a measurement of comparison. In view of the problems outlined above and the fact that policy making is complex and multidimensional, I wouldn’t exclude public spending as an indicator but depending on the policy area be well aware of its conceptual limitations.02br
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