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Public Expenditure, Governance and Human Development
Madhya Pradesh is a state that is "off-track" in achievement of most of the Millennium Development Goals, with wide variance on development outcomes between districts. This study examines the link between public expenditure, quality of governance and human development outcomes in the state, and finds that development expenditure by itself is insufficient in achieving human development at the district level. Public expenditure has better outcomes in districts with better governance indicators, indicating the need to focus on improving governance mechanisms as well as increasing development expenditure.
This paper is part of a larger study, "Divergences in Human Development Outcomes in Madhya Pradesh: The Role of Fiscal Policy and Governance," sponsored by UNICEF, Bhopal. An earlier version of this paper was presented at conferences at the University of Hyderabad and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad.
The authors thank H K Amar Nath and Shiney Chakraborty for their contributions to the larger study. They also thank the anonymous referee for valuable comments. The views expressed here are those of the authors alone.
Madhya Pradesh is a state that is "off-track" in achievement of most of the Millennium Development Goals, with wide variance on development outcomes between districts. This study examines the link between public expenditure, quality of governance and human development outcomes in the state, and finds that development expenditure by itself is insufficient in achieving human development at the district level. Public expenditure has better outcomes in districts with better governance indicators, indicating the need to focus on improving governance mechanisms as well as increasing development expenditure.
