Benchmarking Public Spending Efficiency in Education, Health, and Infrastructure in Ireland

The paper benchmarks Ireland’s public spending efficiency to peer countries in infrastructure, health, and education using a variety of indicators and maps the efficiency frontiers in these sectors using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. It finds that while Ireland is at the efficiency frontier for education spending, there is room for potential gains in public spending efficiency on health and infrastructure. Achieving these gains could create further fiscal space to improve Ireland’s buffers for shocks in an environment of heightened global uncertainty and structural shifts.