How Expansion of Public Services Affects the Poor: Benefit Incidence Analysis for the Lao People's Democratic Republic

Arbeitspapier

Studies of the incidence of benefits from public services have rightly stressed the difference between average and marginal benefits. Cross sectional methods of analysis for Lao PDR indicate that for public education and health services, total benefits are highest for the best-off quintile groups. Nevertheless, these groups' shares of marginal benefits are generally considerably lower and the marginal benefit shares of poorer quintile groups are correspondingly higher. For primary and secondary education and for primary health centers, expanding the overall level of provision delivers a pattern of marginal benefits that is significantly more pro-poor than average shares indicate. Although panel estimates show a pattern of marginal benefits that is somewhat less pro-poor than cross-sectional results suggest, they do not change the finding that the pattern of marginal benefits is more pro-poor than the overall pattern of average benefits.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ADB Economics Working Paper Series ; No. 349

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis ; Macroeconomics: Consumption; Saving; Wealth ; Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: Household
• Subject: benefit incidence analysis ; average benefit ; marginal benefit ; health services ; education services ; Lao PDR

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Warr, Peter ; Menon, Jayant ; Rasphone, Sitthiroth
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Asian Development Bank (ADB)
• (where): Manila
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/109464
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET