Paraguay User’s Manual to The Government Expenditure Database

U

The World Bank

April 2013

Content 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3

2. Paraguayan Budget Structure ......................................................................................................... 4

2.1 Particularities of the Data ......................................................................................................... 5

3. Database Organization .................................................................................................................... 6

4. How to use the Paraguay BOOST database ................................................................................. 10

The World Bank

1. Introduction

A core function of any government involves collecting and disbursing public funds and maintaining

records of such expenditures. Budget execution reporting systems vary greatly in their organization,

transparency, accuracy and level of detail. For researchers, the ability to easily access and analyze

public expenditure data is essential to providing thorough and timely advice to policymakers and

relevant stakeholders. For government officials, rapid access to budget execution data in an easy-

to-use format is essential for better decision-making and increasing analytical capacity within

ministries.

The purpose of the BOOST project (started by the World Bank in early 2010) is to enhance the

transparency and efficiency of public spending across the globe by improving access to

government expenditure data and linking spending to relevant results. The BOOST team has

collected and processed detailed government expenditure data from more than twenty countries

across diffetenr regions, creating easy-to-use databases that have been employed by World Bank

researchers on a variety of projects.

In Paraguay, the BOOST government expenditure database has been constructed at the intitiative

of World Bank country economist as part of the Public Expenditure Review. This manual

describes the resulting database and provides guidance on its use. For help with issues that are

not addressed here, please contact the BOOST team.

This document is organized into the following section

Part II outlines the structure of the data provided by the Paraguayan Government.

Part III presents the organization of the database.

Part IV explains how to use the database with an Excel pivot table.

The BOOST team would like to thank staff at the Ministry of Finance, as well as the growing

BOOST user community of researchers and policymakers who continues to provide useful

feedback as this project strives to grow and improve. We hope that this tool is helpful in opening

new avenues for analysis and providing answers to important questions regarding the efficiency,

equity, and effectiveness of government spending.

The core BOOST team for Paraguay consists of Friederike “Fritzi” Koehler-Geib

(fkoehlerA@worldbank.org), Massimo Mastruzzi (mmastruzzi@worldbank.org) and Francisco

Vazquez-Ahued (fvazquezahued@worldbank.org)

2. Paraguayan Budget Structure

Paraguay’s national public budget can be divided into three main parts, as shown in Figure 1

below: (i) the Central Administration Ministries and Agencies; (ii) the Decentralized Agencies

(tha includes the Regional/Departmental Governments); (iii) and the Municipal Governments.

Figure 1: Structure of the Paraguayan National Budget

Figure 2: Structure of the Central Administration Ministries and Agencies

The Paraguay BOOST originally only had information from the Country’s IFMIS (SIAF in

Spanish), this information is sometimes referred to as central government data which basically

includes the Central Administration Ministries and Agencies and the Decentralized Agencies.

Figure 2 and Figure 3 show a further breakdown of these two respective categories. This data was

obtained with the help of the Vice-ministry of Economy of the Ministry of Finance of Paraguay.

Paraguayan National Budget

Central Administration

Decentralized Agencies

Municipal Governments

Central Administration Ministries and

Agencies

National Legislature

Executive Branch (including Treasury)

Judicial Branch Comptroller Ombudsman

Figure 3: Structure of the Decentralized Agencies

For the central government database, besides having an administrative classification, there are

functional, economic, programmatic classifications. This data is at the most disaggregated level

that was available.

For the World Bank’s Non-lending Technical assistance Paraguay project on Improving Quality of

Expenditures at the Municipal Level a database was developed that included expenditure data for

municipal governments. From this project we obtained the Municipal Government data. However,

this data doesn’t have as much detail (there are no programmatic or functional classifications) and

only data for the years 2006-2010 was obtained, whereas we have central government data for the

years 2003-2012.

2.1 Particularities of the Data The Paraguayan central government data presents the following particularities:

The inclusion of a classification variable, Tipo Presupuesto, which is one of the main

classification variables of the Paraguayan budget. It divides the Paraguayan budget into

four main categories: Administration, Action, Investment, and Debt Service.

There are two programmatic classifications: Programa and Sub-programa. There is another

similar classification variable labeled Proyecto, however there is no clear and consistent

relationship with the programmatic variables, therefore it is considered to be a different

kind of variable.

The budget classification in Paraguay has an economic classification with three variables

for each label: Econ1, Econ2, and Econ3. There is also another set of variables that could

also be classified as an economic or quai-economic classification; these are the “Objeto del

Gasto” variables, which include Grupo, Sub-grupo and Objeto Gasto.

There is a variable to identify the intra-governmental transfers. There are also variables that

identify what government unit is the recipient and which one is the contributor of the

transfer; there is also a variable that identifies the type of transfer. The inclusion of the

transfer variables is important since some official budget reports show figues data including

transfers and some show figures excluding transfers. All of these transfer variables were

created for the BOOST database.

There is a geographic variable, Departamento, which identifies the department/region

where the specific budget item is implemented. For items where it includes two or more

departments it is considered to be countrywide (Alcance Nacional in Spanish).

Since there are some changes in the administration structure of the Paraguayan government

a variable was created to reflect these changes. For instance the Treasury at the beginning

of the period was considered a different agency, but later it is considered to be part of the

Decentralized Agencies

Central Bank Departmental Governments

Autonomous and Autarchic

Entities

Social Security Public Entities

State Owned Enterprises

National Universities

Ministry of Finance. A variable was created, admin2 Reciente (Entidad), to reclassify the

government agencies and entities into their 2012 equivalent. This is done only for the

admin2. This variable was created for the BOOSt database.

The Municipal Government data is currently not included in Paraguay’s IFMIS. The municipal

governments are legally mandated to send written reports on municipal finances for every budget

cycle to the Ministry of Finance; however the process of collecting and processing this municipal

data is still no automatic. Another issue is the late submissions from some municipal governments.

As mentioned above, the World Bank project on Improving Quality of Expenditures at the

Municipal Level for Paraguay collected information on municipal finances. With the help of

Accounting Directorate of the Vice-ministry of Financial Administration of the Ministry of Finance

and the Departments and Municipalities Unit of the same Ministry the World Bank team from that

project was able to collect expenditure data for municipalities. There is much less detail than the

central government data, there is practically only the variable to identify the municipality and two

of the “Objeto del Gasto” variables: Grupo and Sub-grupo (the more detailed Objeto Gasto is not

included). Therefore the potential analysis with the municipal expenditure data is much more

limited than with the central government data.

3. Database Organization

Currently the database contains information Paraguay BOOST of public spending at the most

dissagregated level for central government agencies and decentralized entities for the years 2003-

2012; while the data for espenditure by municipal governments is limited to the years 2006-2010.

The BOOST database contains variables that correspond to fields in the treasury data that

cover different types and levels of Paraguay’s budget classification. A complete list of

BOOST variables and descriptions can be found in Table 1 below

Table 1. List of BOOST Variables

BOOST Variable Variable Description

Tipo presupuesto Main classification type in Paraguay's budget. Divided into four types:

Administration, Action, Investment, and Debt Service

Administrative and Programmatic Classification Variables

admin1 (Nivel) Level 1: Level of Government Spending (e.g. Judicial Branch, Regional

Governments, National Universities)

admin2

(Entidad) Level 2: Ministry, Agency, Sub-national government, or entity

admin3 (Unidad

Responsable) Level 3: Vice-Ministry or equivalent sub-entity

Programa Program Sub-programa Sub-program

Functional Classification Variables

Finalidad Level 1: Top-level classification Función Level 2: Mid-level classification

Sub-función Level 3: Bottom-level classification

Economic Classification Variables

Econ1 Level 1: Top-level classification Econ2 Level 2: Mid-level classification Econ3 Level 3: Bottom-level classification

Classification Variables by "Objeto del gasto"

Grupo Level 1: Top-level classification Sub-grupo Level 2: Mid-level classification

Objeto Gasto Level 3: Bottom-level classification

Source of Funding Variables

Fuente de

financiamiento Level 1:

Origen de

financiamiento Level 2:

Other Classification and Created Variables

Transferencia

Consolidable Filter variable used to identify the transfers within the government

Tipo de Transferencia

Consolidable Variable that identifies the type of transfer

Entidad Madre

(transferencia) Variable that identifies the parent entity, i.e. the entity from which the transfer

originates.

Entidad

Hija/Receptora

(transferencia)

Variable that identifies the recipient entity of the transfer

Other variables

Año Fiscal Year Proyecto Project

Departamento The department where the expenditure is implemented admin2 Reciente

(Entidad) Admin variable that puts admin2 categories into their 2012 equivalent

Budgetary Amounts

Presupuesto inicial Initial Budget (Paraguayan Guaranies) Modificación en el

presupuesto

Budget revisions (Paraguayan Guaranies)

Presupuesto vigente Revised Budget = Initial Budget + Budget Revisions (Paraguayan Guaranies)

Obligado Released Budget (Paraguayan Guaranies), in practice it is treated as the Executed

expenditure Pagado Actual Payments (Paraguayan Guaranies)

Each variable is labeled with their original name as used by the Government of Paraguay. For the

administrative and economic classification variables a standard BOOST name is given that

identifies the type of budget classification to which the variable corresponds—e.g., Econ1

corresponds to the first (top) level of the country’s economic budget classification. For the

administrative classification there is both the BOOST name and the original name in parentheses.

The database contains three variables that correspond to different administrative classifications

within the Paraguay budget. The first level of administrative classification, admin1, identifies the

Level of Government Spending (e.g. Judicial Branch, Regional Governments, and National

Universities). The second level of administrative classification, admin2, identifies the Ministries,

agencies, Sub-national governments, or entities. The third level administrative classification,

admin3, specifies the spending units under which the funds were spent. The admin2 reciente

variable converts the admin2 classification used for that year into the equivalent for the year 2012.

There are also two levels of program classification (Programa and Sub-programa).

Additionally, the database contains variables that correspond to the three levels of

economic classification (Econ1, Econ2 and Econ3); also a similar set of variables classified

by the “Objeto del Gasto” (Grupo, Sub-grupo and Objeto Gasto) are included; a visual

representation of these “Objeto del Gasto” variables can be found in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4. Hierarchy of “Objeto del Gasto” Classification Variables

The BOOST database includes three variables that correspond to the three levels of

functional classification (Finalidad, Función and Sub-función), A visual representation of the

functional hierarchy can be found in Figure 5 below.

Grupo

Sub-grupo

Objeto Gasto

Figure 5. Hierarchy of functional Classification Variables

There are consolidated transfers between public sector agencies and entities aimed at capital and

current expenditure. These include transfers granted to government organizations and entities that

come from revenue sharing agreements and other earmarked special resources. These are the

transfers identified in the BOOST database. The Entidad Madre variable is the admin2 variable

for the parent entity, i.e. the one that gives the transfer; Entidad Hija/Receptora is the admin2

variable for the corresponding recipient entity of the transfer.

Finally, the database contains four variables that correspond to different budget amounts:

Presupuesto inicial contains the nominal amount (Paraguayan Guaranies) that was approved by

the Paraguayan national congress in each year’s budget for a specific line item;

Modi f i cación en e l presupues to a re t he amends to the approved budget ;

Presupues to Vigente i s the modi f i ed budget (approved p lus the amends )

Obligado lists the corresponding amount the released budget; while Pagado contains actual

payments associated with that line item.

Finalidad

Función

Sub-función

4. How to use the Paraguay BOOST database

For ease of use, the BOOST team has developed a standard user interface through which to

access the BOOST government expenditure database with the help of Excel PivotTables.

A PivotTable report is an interactive way to quickly summarize large amounts of

data. Use a PivotTable report to analyze numerical data in detail and to answer

unanticipated questions about your data. A PivotTable report is especially

designed for:

Querying large amounts of data in many user-friendly ways.

Subtotaling and aggregating numeric data, summarizing data by categories

and subcategories, and creating custom calculations and formulas.

Expanding and collapsing levels of data to focus your results, and drilling

down to details from the summary data for areas of interest to you.

Moving rows to columns or columns to rows (or “pivoting”) to see different

summaries of the source data.

Filtering, sorting, grouping, and conditionally formatting the most useful and

interesting subset of data to enable you to focus on the information that you

want.

Presenting concise, attractive, and annotated online or printed reports.1

PivotTables are straightforward and easy to use and allow for quick, customizable analyses of

large amounts of data. This section presents several examples of using the BOOST PivotTable

interface to general custom reports. With BOOST, as with many things in life, the best way to

learn is by doing.2

1 For more information on Excel PivotTables, please consult the help function in Microsoft Excel or this

helpful overview of the Microsoft website: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/overview-of-

pivottable-and- pivotchart-reports-HP010177384.aspx.

2 The minimum technical requirements for using the Paraguay BOOST government expenditure database are as

follows: (i) a computer with at least 1 GB of RAM (2 GB preferred); (ii) Microsoft Excel version 2007 or later (or

similar database software that allows loading of files with at least one million lines of data).

Example 1: Time Trend Analysis

Figure 6 below presents a simple example of time trend analysis at the macro level. It reports (in

nominal terms) the central government expenditures from Fiscal year 2003to 2012, broken

down by the top- level administrative classification. To generate this PivotTable, admin1 is

placed in the ―Row Labels‖ box, Año in the ―Column Labels‖ box. The values in the body of the

table consist of the sum of the Presupuesto inicial variable.

Figure 6. Examining Central Government Expenditures across Years

Example 2: Composition Breakdown

Figure 7 below presents a breakdown of 2007 government expenditures by economic category

and sub-category for each ministry in Paraguay’s functional budget classification. To generate

this PivotTable, Econ1 and Econ2 are placed in the ―Row Labels‖ box, admin2 in the ―Column

Labels‖ box, and the Año (―2007‖) variable is used as filter. The values in the body of the table

consist of the sum of the Presupuesto inicial variable.

Figure 7. Examining the Composition of Expenditures by Sector

Example 3: Geographic

Variation

Figure 8 below presents a breakdown of 2007 expenditures by department/region and the

second level of functional classification. To generate this PivotTable, Función is placed in the

―Row Labels‖ box, Departamento in the ―Column Labels‖ box, and Año (―2007‖) variables is

used as filter. The values in the body of the table consist of the sum of the Presupuesto

inicial variable.

Figure 8. Examining Differences in Spending across Geographic

Areas