This paper assesses the impact on economic growth of increased efficiency of public spending in primary and lower-secondary education. Higher efficiency in public spending in schools can bolster growth through two main channels. On the one hand, it can allow a transfer of labour from the public sector to the business sector at unchanged…

In about two decades, Spain was transformed from one of the most centralised countries to one of the most decentralised. Spending functions were devolved rapidly. Following the rapid decentralisation to the regions since the early 1980s, the sub-national authorities now have more staff to manage than the central government and have…

Enhanced autonomy of sub-national governments has spurred innovative management. Spending assignments across levels of government, however, often overlap and/or are not yet fully understood by most citizens. Sub-national governments' accountability is further reduced by the heavy reliance on federal transfers, as opposed to own-revenues (taxes and…

This paper reviews Iceland's performance in skills accumulation against the backdrop of a rapidly changing economic environment and discusses directions for further improvements. Since the late 1990s, the government has considerably raised expenditure on education, which is now among the highest in the OECD relative to GDP. Nonetheless, Iceland…