IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/obuest/v79y2017i2p251-275.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labour Costs and the Size of Government

Author

Listed:
  • François Facchini
  • Mickael Melki
  • Andrew Pickering

Abstract

Given inelastic demand for labour‐intensive public services, the size of government depends positively on labour costs. OECD data exhibit a strong statistical association between government size and the business‐sector labour share of income. When the labour share is instrumented with measures of technological change, institutional variation and predetermined data it continues to positively impact government size. In contrast, transfer spending is unaffected by the labour share. The evidence is consistent with the idea that the recent decline in the labour share has contributed to the slowdown in the growth of government witnessed in much of the post‐war era.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • François Facchini & Mickael Melki & Andrew Pickering, 2017. "Labour Costs and the Size of Government," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(2), pages 251-275, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:obuest:v:79:y:2017:i:2:p:251-275
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/obes.12140
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Motohiro Yogo, 2004. "Estimating the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution When Instruments Are Weak," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 797-810, August.
    2. Bentolila Samuel & Saint-Paul Gilles, 2003. "Explaining Movements in the Labor Share," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-33, October.
    3. Paul Maarek & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2020. "Development and the Labor Share," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(1), pages 232-257.
    4. Guido Tabellini, 2000. "A Positive Theory of Social Security," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 523-545, September.
    5. Bruno Decreuse & Paul Maarek, 2015. "FDI and the Labor Share in Developing Countries : A Theory and Some Evidence," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 119-120, pages 289-319.
    6. Ghazala Azmat & Alan Manning & John Van Reenen, 2012. "Privatization and the Decline of Labour's Share: International Evidence from Network Industries," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(315), pages 470-492, July.
    7. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    8. Brent Neiman, 2014. "The Global Decline of the Labor Share," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 61-103.
    9. Friedrich Schneider, 2003. "Privatisation in OECD Countries: Theoretical Reasons and Results Obtained," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 1(3), pages 24-29, 02.
    10. James Buchanan & Gordon Tullock, 1977. "The expanding public sector: Wagner squared," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 147-150, September.
    11. Tabellini, Guido, 2000. " A Positive Theory of Social Security," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 523-545, June.
    12. Guerriero, Marta & Sen, Kunal, 2012. "What Determines the Share of Labour in National Income? A Cross-Country Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 6643, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Stanley Winer & Michael Tofias & Bernard Grofman & John Aldrich, 2008. "Trending economic factors and the structure of Congress in the growth of government, 1930–2002," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 415-448, June.
    14. Bruno, Giovanni S.F., 2005. "Approximating the bias of the LSDV estimator for dynamic unbalanced panel data models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 361-366, June.
    15. Shelton, Cameron A., 2007. "The size and composition of government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2230-2260, December.
    16. Dani Rodrik, 1998. "Why Do More Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 997-1032, October.
    17. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    18. Ferris, J Stephen & West, Edwin G, 1999. "Cost Disease versus Leviathan Explanations of Rising Government Cost: An Empirical Investigation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 98(3-4), pages 307-316, March.
    19. Douglas Gollin, 2002. "Getting Income Shares Right," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 458-474, April.
    20. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson & Daniel M. Sturm, 2010. "Political Competition, Policy and Growth: Theory and Evidence from the United States," CEP Discussion Papers dp1009, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    21. Friedrich Schneider, 2003. "Privatisation in OECD Countries: Theoretical Reasons and Results Obtained," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 1(03), pages 24-29, February.
    22. T. W. Swan, 1956. "ECONOMIC GROWTH and CAPITAL ACCUMULATION," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 334-361, November.
    23. Magnus Henrekson & Johan Lybeck, 1988. "Explaining the growth of government in Sweden: A disequilibrium approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 213-232, June.
    24. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    25. Cameron, David R., 1978. "The Expansion of the Public Economy: A Comparative Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 1243-1261, December.
    26. repec:ces:ifodic:v:1:y:2003:i:3:p:14567922 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Borcherding, Thomas E., 1985. "The causes of government expenditure growth: A survey of the U.S. evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 359-382, December.
    28. Robert J. Barro, 2001. "Human Capital and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 12-17, May.
    29. Andrew Pickering & James Rockey, 2011. "Ideology and the Growth of Government," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 907-919, August.
    30. James Kau & Paul Rubin, 1981. "The size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 261-274, January.
    31. Kiviet, Jan F., 1995. "On bias, inconsistency, and efficiency of various estimators in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 53-78, July.
    32. Sanz, Ismael & Velazquez, Francisco J., 2007. "The role of ageing in the growth of government and social welfare spending in the OECD," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 917-931, December.
    33. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson & Daniel M. Sturm, 2010. "Political Competition, Policy and Growth: Theory and Evidence from the US," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1329-1352.
    34. Nazrul Islam, 1995. "Growth Empirics: A Panel Data Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(4), pages 1127-1170.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Antonio Pacifico, 2019. "Panel Bayesian VAR Modeling for Policy and Forecasting when dealing with confounding and latent effects," Journal of Statistical and Econometric Methods, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 8(1), pages 1-1.
    2. Weijie Luo, 2017. "Inequality and Growth in the 21st Century," Discussion Papers 17/18, Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Melki, Mickael & Pickering, Andrew, 2019. "New evidence on the historical growth of government in Europe: The role of labor costs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 445-460.
    4. Weijie Luo & Andrew Pickering & Paulo Santos Monteiro, 2017. "Inequality and the Size of Government," Discussion Papers 17/02, Department of Economics, University of York.
    5. Antonio Pacifico, 2019. "Structural Panel Bayesian VAR Model to Deal with Model Misspecification and Unobserved Heterogeneity Problems," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-24, March.
    6. Weijie Luo, 2022. "Inequality and growth in the twenty‐first century," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 69(4), pages 345-366, September.
    7. Emmanuel Apergis & Nicholas Apergis, 2021. "The impact of COVID-19 on economic growth: evidence from a Bayesian Panel Vector Autoregressive (BPVAR) model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(58), pages 6739-6751, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. François Facchini & Mickael Melki & Andrew Pickering, 2013. "The Labor Share and the Size of Government," Discussion Papers 13/02, Department of Economics, University of York.
    2. Melki, Mickael & Pickering, Andrew, 2019. "New evidence on the historical growth of government in Europe: The role of labor costs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 445-460.
    3. Francois Facchini, 2018. "What Are the Determinants of Public Spending? An Overview of the Literature," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 46(4), pages 419-439, December.
    4. Weijie Luo & Andrew Pickering & Paulo Santos Monteiro, 2017. "Inequality and the Size of Government," Discussion Papers 17/02, Department of Economics, University of York.
    5. Manuel Ja n-Garc a, 2017. "A Demand Determinants Model for Public Spending in Spain," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(4), pages 372-386.
    6. Agata Szymańska, 2021. "Determinants of General Government Social Spending: Evidence from the Eurozone," Ekonomista, Polskie Towarzystwo Ekonomiczne, issue 4, pages 508-528.
    7. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Mehmet Ugur & Siew Ling Yew, 2017. "Does Government Size Affect Per-Capita Income Growth? A Hierarchical Meta-Regression Analysis," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(300), pages 142-171, March.
    8. Andrew Pickering & James Rockey, 2013. "Ideology and the size of US state government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 443-465, September.
    9. Florian Dorn & Christoph Schinke, 2018. "Top income shares in OECD countries: The role of government ideology and globalisation," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(9), pages 2491-2527, September.
    10. J Stephen Ferris & Stanley L. Winer, 2018. "Political Competitiveness and Fiscal Structure: A Time Series Analysis. Canada, 1870 - 2015," CESifo Working Paper Series 7220, CESifo.
    11. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    12. Kyoji Fukao & Cristiano Perugini, 2021. "The Long‐Run Dynamics of the Labor Share in Japan," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(2), pages 445-480, June.
    13. Roberto Torrini, 2015. "Labour, Profit and Housing Rent Shares in Italian GDP: Long-Run Trends and Recent Patterns," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 275-314.
    14. Christian Bjørnskov & Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Freedom Across Canadian Provinces," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 143-166.
    15. Bruno Amable & Donatella Gatti & Elvire Guillaud, 2008. "How does Party Fractionalization convey Preferences for Redistribution in Parliamentary Democracies ?," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00348878, HAL.
    16. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    17. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2011. "Econometrics For Grumblers: A New Look At The Literature On Cross‐Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 109-155, February.
    18. Petreski, Marjan, 2009. "Analysis of exchange-rate regime effect on growth: theoretical channels and empirical evidence with panel data," Economics Discussion Papers 2009-49, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Toke Aidt & Peter Jensen, 2013. "Democratization and the size of government: evidence from the long 19th century," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 511-542, December.
    20. Leonid Polishchuk & Georgiy Syunyaev, 2015. "Ruling elites’ rotation and asset ownership: implications for property rights," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 159-182, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:obuest:v:79:y:2017:i:2:p:251-275. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.