Sectors

Five markets we know from both sides.

HealthHow the same money could deliver more and better care.Where demand outgrows supply, and how a provider stands out.EducationHow the system could reach every child and teach each one better.Where families look for more, and how a private school or faculty earns its premium.ICT & digital infrastructureHow support could follow skills and adoption at home, not headcount.Where the market moves from hours to solutions, and which firms are worth backing.Manufacturing & exportersHow support could help domestic firms grow, not only bring new plants.Where domestic manufacturers can sell more, and what it takes to get there.Agri-foodHow farm support could raise what a hectare earns.Where land earns most, and who can capture the value.All sectorsOverview

Topics

Five questions that cut across every market.

SMEs & entrepreneurshipHow support could reach the small and mid-sized firms able to grow.Where domestic know-how sits, and which firms are worth backing.Competitiveness & investmentHow support could raise productivity, not only jobs.Where firms have underinvested, and what it takes to catch up.Public financeHow each dinar could be tied to a purpose, and pay to the value of work.Where the state will spend, and how to compete for it.Green & digital transitionHow carbon revenue and support could help firms measure and cut, not only pay.Where clean power and carbon data open a market, and who can serve it.Skills & labour marketsHow adults in work and out of it could keep learning what the economy needs.Where to find the people a plan needs, and how to train and keep them.All topicsOverview

Services

Economic analysis for governments, donors and international organisations: we diagnose sectors and public spending, design and cost programmes, and evaluate what they changed.Economic analysis for companies and investors: we size markets and plan entry, find and assess firms to buy, and model what a business is worth.

Sector & value-chain diagnosticsWhere a sector creates value, who leads it, and what holds it back.Public expenditure & functional reviewsWhere public money goes, what it achieves, and how the same budget could do more.Policy & programme designWhom a programme should reach, with what instrument, and how it will be judged.Cost-benefit & fiscal impactWhat a policy or project will cost, year by year, and what it returns.EvaluationWhat a programme changed, for whom, and what would have happened anyway.Market entry studiesHow large the market is, who buys, who competes and what it takes to win.Policy, regulatory & public-demand riskHow incentives, licences, rules and public spending move a business case.Market-entry programmesFrom a study to an operation on the ground: set-up, people, partners and first customers.Business plansA plan a board can approve and a lender or investor can fund.Target search & screeningWhich firms exist, who owns them, and which deserve a closer look.Due diligenceWhat a target’s business, clients and earnings really are, before the price is set.Financial models & valuationWhat a business or an investment is worth, and how it pays back under different scenarios.Surveys & primary dataThe evidence that does not exist yet, collected so that it can be trusted.Custom analytical & performance toolsModels, dashboards and indices, used every time a decision comes back.All servicesOverview

Case · World Bank, 2024

Public pay reform

Evidence

A pay reform is tested by whether it can be paid for. Paying every public job in Serbia its evaluated value, on a single base and with no pay cut, would raise the wage bill by more than a third. At once, the bill would take twelve of every hundred dinars of GDP, above the fiscal rule’s ceiling of ten; over four years, with the larger raises first, about nine.

At oncepublic wage bill, of every 100 dinars of GDPReform at once 12ceiling 10

Over four yearspublic wage bill in each year, of every 100 dinars of GDPPhased 9ceiling 10

World Bank, Public Finance Review 2025, chapter 5, tables 5.1 and 5.2

Question

The World Bank asked what it would cost to move general government onto one pay system, in which each job is paid by its evaluated value against a single base and nobody’s pay is cut, and over how many years the move could be phased within the fiscal rule.

Approach

We rebuilt the job-level model we had first made for the pay law in 2018 and ran it on 2023 data. It places every job on the new scale through its evaluation, and sets the single base against a reference point high in the distribution rather than against the one most over-valued job. For any base and any pace of phasing it shows the wage bill and average pay, and, for each of some sixty sector and job groups, how many people would get no raise and how many would need a top-up to keep their pay.

Findings

  • A decade of raises decided sector by sector had left pay out of line with what the jobs are worth: some groups had gained far more than others for work of similar value.
  • The gaps are widest in education, social protection, local administration and culture, and narrowest in health and justice.
  • Neither easy answer works. A reform that costs nothing leaves almost everyone on a personal top-up, so the new scale exists only on paper; one that removes every top-up at once costs about twice as much as the reform itself.
  • A phased path does: the larger raises in the first years, the wage bill steady as a share of the economy, and some room left under the ceiling.

Where it went

The analysis is published as the chapter on public pay of the World Bank’s Public Finance Review 2025. The model reruns on any base and any pace, so each new proposal can be costed on the same footing, with the people it leaves without a raise counted next to the cost.

World Bank, Public Finance Review 2025
Next casePrivate healthcare

Contact

Tell us the decision in front of you, and when you need it.

nemanja@econominess.rs

Company profile, PDF · Belgrade, Serbia