Public spending composition and public sector efficiency: Implications for growth and poverty reduction in Uganda

The paper examines the interrelationships between public spending composition and Uganda's development goals including economic growth and poverty reduction. We utilize a dynamic CGE model to study these interrelationships. This paper demonstrates that public spending composition does indeed influence economic growth and poverty reduction. In particular, this study shows that improved public sector efficiency coupled with re-allocation of public expenditure away from the unproductive sectors such as public administration and security to the productive sectors including agriculture, energy, water and health leads to higher GDP growth rates and accelerates poverty reduction. Moreover, the rate of poverty is faster in rural households relative to the urban households. A major contribution of this paper is that investments in agriculture particularly with a view of promoting value addition and investing in complementary infrastructure including roads and affordable energy contributes to higher economic growth rates and also accelerates the rate of poverty reduction.Sennoga, Matovu, EPRC, Public expenditure, Economic growth - Uganda, Poverty reduction, Computable General Equilibrium, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Financial Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Production Economics, Public Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, C68, D58, E62, F15, H62, 132,

Social cash transfers for the poorest in Uganda

This paper mainly focuses on the various ways through which a social cash transfer program can be designed and financed. We identify four types of households which are considered to be vulnerable to be targeted with cash transfers. This includes households with orphans, old individuals, young and labor constrained. Extending a cash transfer to these households would lead to less poverty over the simulation period. these programs which would be constrained to less than 0.5 percent of GDP would have a small impact on the overall economy. By increasing taxes to finance the program this would wipe out the potential benefits of the cash transfer program of reducing poverty.Poverty, Cash transfers, Vulnerable groups, Sennoga, Twimukye, Matovu, EPRC, Poor people, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries, Financial Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Tax evasion and widening the tax base in Uganda

Uganda still lags behind in its tax collections at the domestic level. For most of the commodities the tax collection effort is not more than 5 percent relative to the statutory rate of 18 percent. This results into a situation where the government has to rely a lot on foreign financing. From the analysis, there is a lot of improvement where URA can be able to increase its tax effort. this could be achieved by targeting commodities that are under-taxed and excluding food items for equity purposes. Increasing domestic collection would also result into less over reliance on taxing a few commodities especially fuel which is interlinked with a lot of other sectors and could indeed harm growth in the long-run. We also find that the tax effort on imports is sufficient. However, import duties on fuel remain very high and this could be a symptom of the poor domestic tax collection.Taxation, Tax base, Domestic taxes, import duty, Sennoga, Twimukye, Matovu, EPRC, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Public Economics,

Public spending composition and public sector efficiency: Implications for growth and poverty reduction in Uganda

The paper examines the interrelationships between public spending composition and Uganda's development goals including economic growth and poverty reduction. We utilize a dynamic CGE model to study these interrelationships. This paper demonstrates that public spending composition does indeed influence economic growth and poverty reduction. In particular, this study shows that improved public sector efficiency coupled with re-allocation of public expenditure away from the unproductive sectors such as public administration and security to the productive sectors including agriculture, energy, water and health leads to higher GDP growth rates and accelerates poverty reduction. Moreover, the rate of poverty is faster in rural households relative to the urban households. A major contribution of this paper is that investments in agriculture particularly with a view of promoting value addition and investing in complementary infrastructure including roads and affordable energy contributes to higher economic growth rates and also accelerates the rate of poverty reduction

Social cash transfers for the poorest in Uganda

This paper mainly focuses on the various ways through which a social cash transfer program can be designed and financed. We identify four types of households which are considered to be vulnerable to be targeted with cash transfers. This includes households with orphans, old individuals, young and labor constrained. Extending a cash transfer to these households would lead to less poverty over the simulation period. these programs which would be constrained to less than 0.5 percent of GDP would have a small impact on the overall economy. By increasing taxes to finance the program this would wipe out the potential benefits of the cash transfer program of reducing poverty

Tax evasion and widening the tax base in Uganda

Uganda still lags behind in its tax collections at the domestic level. For most of the commodities the tax collection effort is not more than 5 percent relative to the statutory rate of 18 percent. This results into a situation where the government has to rely a lot on foreign financing. From the analysis, there is a lot of improvement where URA can be able to increase its tax effort. this could be achieved by targeting commodities that are under-taxed and excluding food items for equity purposes. Increasing domestic collection would also result into less over reliance on taxing a few commodities especially fuel which is interlinked with a lot of other sectors and could indeed harm growth in the long-run. We also find that the tax effort on imports is sufficient. However, import duties on fuel remain very high and this could be a symptom of the poor domestic tax collection