IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/eurase/v1y2011i1p3-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relative Efficiency of Government Spending and Its Determinants: Evidence from East Asian Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Wang
  • Eskander Alvi

Abstract

This paper aims not only to measure the relative efficiency of government spending in seven Asian countries but also to investigate the factors that influence government performance using annual data covering the period 1986–2007. Four hypotheses are tested: (i) the effect of private sector activities on the inefficiency of government spending in raising GDP, (ii) the government corruption hypothesis, (iii) the government size hypothesis, and (iv) the relationship between monetary expansion and the performance of government spending. The results of data envelopment analysis (DEA) show that Japan and Singapore have the highest efficiency scores in the sample. Extreme bounds analysis (EBA) in association with Tobit regression indicates that private sector activities exhibit a robust negative relationship with government inefficiency. Corruption is found to be a crucial factor affecting government performance, and M2 expansion and the inefficiency of government spending are robustly positively related. Copyright Eurasia Business and Economics Society 2011

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Wang & Eskander Alvi, 2011. "Relative Efficiency of Government Spending and Its Determinants: Evidence from East Asian Countries," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 1(1), pages 3-28, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eurase:v:1:y:2011:i:1:p:3-28
    DOI: 10.14208/BF03353822
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.14208/BF03353822
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.14208/BF03353822?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Eric C. & Huang, Weichiao, 2007. "Relative efficiency of R&D activities: A cross-country study accounting for environmental factors in the DEA approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 260-273, March.
    2. Folster, Stefan & Henrekson, Magnus, 2001. "Growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1501-1520, August.
    3. Barreto, Raul A., 2000. "Endogenous corruption in a neoclassical growth model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 35-60, January.
    4. Hansson, Par & Henrekson, Magnus, 1994. "A New Framework for Testing the Effect of Government Spending on Growth and Productivity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 81(3-4), pages 381-401, December.
    5. Marini, Giancarlo & van der Ploeg, Frederick, 1988. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy in an Optimising Model with Capital Accumulation and Finite Lives," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(392), pages 772-786, September.
    6. Young, Peter C. & Pedregal, Diego J., 1999. "Macro-economic relativity: government spending, private investment and unemployment in the USA 1948-1998," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3-4), pages 359-380, December.
    7. Leamer, Edward E, 1983. "Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 31-43, March.
    8. Harold Fried & Shelton Schmidt & Suthathip Yaisawarng, 1999. "Incorporating the Operating Environment Into a Nonparametric Measure of Technical Efficiency," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 249-267, November.
    9. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    10. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    11. Knox Lovell, C. A. & Pastor, Jesus T. & Turner, Judi A., 1995. "Measuring macroeconomic performance in the OECD: A comparison of European and non-European countries," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 507-518, December.
    12. Glenn Rayp & Nicolas Van De Sijpe, 2007. "Measuring and explaining government efficiency in developing countries," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(2), pages 360-381.
    13. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    14. McDonald, John F & Moffitt, Robert A, 1980. "The Uses of Tobit Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(2), pages 318-321, May.
    15. Easterly, William & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 417-458, December.
    16. Palokangas, Tapio, 1993. "Temporary cuts in government spending as an anti-inflationary device," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 199-203.
    17. Ali Salman Saleh & Charles Harvie, 2005. "The Budget Deficit And Economic Performance: A Survey," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 50(02), pages 211-243.
    18. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    19. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    20. Richard Cebula, 2003. "Budget deficits and interest rates in Germany," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 9(1), pages 64-68, February.
    21. Treisman, Daniel, 2000. "The causes of corruption: a cross-national study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 399-457, June.
    22. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    23. Bose, Niloy & Capasso, Salvatore & Murshid, Antu Panini, 2008. "Threshold Effects of Corruption: Theory and Evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 1173-1191, July.
    24. Cooley, Thomas F & LeRoy, Stephen F, 1981. "Identification and Estimation of Money Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 825-844, December.
    25. Mark Setterfield, 2009. "Fiscal and monetary policy interactions: lessons for revising the EU Stability and Growth Pact," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 623-643, July.
    26. Dilip K. Das, 1996. "The Asia-Pacific Economy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-37555-0.
    27. Magda Kandil & Ida Mirzaie, 2006. "Consumption and macroeconomic policies: Theory and evidence from developing countries," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 469-491.
    28. Miller, Stephen M. & Upadhyay, Mukti P., 2000. "The effects of openness, trade orientation, and human capital on total factor productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 399-423, December.
    29. Pranab Bardhan, 1997. "Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1320-1346, September.
    30. Bilin Neyapti, 2003. "Budget Deficits and Inflation: The Roles of Central Bank Independence and Financial Market Development," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(4), pages 458-475, October.
    31. Greene, William H, 1981. "On the Asymptotic Bias of the Ordinary Least Squares Estimator of the Tobit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 505-513, March.
    32. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    33. Leamer, Edward E, 1985. "Sensitivity Analyses Would Help," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 308-313, June.
    34. Bharat Kolluri & Mahmoud Wahab, 2007. "Asymmetries in the conditional relation of government expenditure and economic growth," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(18), pages 2303-2322.
    35. Niloy Bose & M. Emranul Haque & Denise R. Osborn, 2007. "Public Expenditure And Economic Growth: A Disaggregated Analysis For Developing Countries," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(5), pages 533-556, September.
    36. Evans, Paul & Karras, Georgios, 1996. "Private and government consumption with liquidity constraints," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 255-266, April.
    37. Faria, Joao Ricardo, 2000. "A two-class fiscal and monetary growth model," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 355-364, September.
    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. Marthinus C. Breitenbach & Victor Ngobeni & Goodness C. Aye, 2021. "Efficiency of Healthcare Systems in the First Wave of COVID-19 – A Technical Efficiency Analysis," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 3-21.
    2. Breitenbach, Marthinus C & Ngobeni, Victor & Ayte, Goodness, 2020. "The first 100 days of COVID-19 coronavirus – How efficient did country health systems perform to flatten the curve in the first wave?," MPRA Paper 8872, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Ngobeni, Victor & Breitenbach, Marthinus C, 2021. "Production and Scale Efficiency of South African Water Utilities: The Case of Water Boards," MPRA Paper 106242, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Rajul Awasthi & Nihal Bayraktar, 2015. "Can tax simplification help lower tax corruption?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 5(2), pages 297-330, December.
    5. Ablam Estel APETI & Bao-We-Wal BAMBE & Jean Louis COMBES, 2022. "On the Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Reforms : Fiscal Rules and Public Expenditure Efficiency," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2985, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    6. Bruna Bruno & Marisa Faggini, 2017. "Education, R&D, and social progress," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 7(1), pages 33-48, April.
    7. Duy-Tung Bui, 2018. "Fiscal policy and national saving in emerging Asia: challenge or opportunity?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 8(2), pages 305-322, August.
    8. Krzysztof Kluza, 2017. "Risk assessment of the local government sector based on the ratio analysis and the DEA method. Evidence from Poland," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 7(3), pages 329-351, December.
    9. Shwu-Huei Huang & Ming-Miin Yu & Ming-Shenq Hwang & Yu-Shan Wei & Ming-Huei Chen, 2017. "Efficiency of Tax Collection and Tax Management in Taiwan's Local Tax Offices," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 620-648, October.
    10. Ablam Estel Apeti & Bao-We-Wal Bambe & Aguima Aime Bernard Lompo, 2023. "Determinants of public sector efficiency: a panel database from a stochastic frontier analysis," Post-Print hal-04189811, HAL.
    11. Gergana Mihaylova-Borisova & Presiana Nenkova, 2021. "DEA Efficiency Approach in Comparing Macroeconomic Performance of EU and Balkan Countries," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 42-62.
    12. Dongchao Zhang & Fangyi Jiao & Xiyue Zheng & Jianing Pang, 2023. "Analysis of the Influence Mechanism of New Urbanization on High-Quality Economic Development in Northeast China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-22, May.
    13. Lucas Menescal & José Alves, 2023. "Tax structure and public sector efficiency: new evidence for developing countries," Working Papers REM 2023/0291, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    14. Gabriel Villa & Sebastián Lozano, 2016. "DEA with non-monotonic variables. Application to EU governments’ macroeconomic efficiency," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 67(12), pages 1510-1523, December.
    15. Narcis BRANDUSESCU, 2018. "The Analysys Of Romanian Government Investment Expenditure In 2008 – 2017 Interval," Scientific Bulletin - Economic Sciences, University of Pitesti, vol. 17(3), pages 119-124.
    16. Ngobeni, Victor & Breitenbach, Marthinus C, 2020. "Technical Efficiency of Water Boards in South Africa: A Costing and Pricing Benchmarking Exercise," MPRA Paper 101501, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. López-Herrera, Carmen & Cordero, José M. & Pedraja-Chaparro, Francisco & Polo, Cristina, 2023. "Fiscal rules and their influence on public sector efficiency," MPRA Paper 119018, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Victor Ngobeni & Marthinus C. Breitenbach & Goodness C. Aye, 2020. "Technical Efficiency of Provincial Public Healthcare in South Africa," Working Papers 202013, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    19. Maria Basílio & Clara Pires & Carlos Borralho & José Pires Reis, 2020. "Local government efficiency: is there anything new after Troika’s intervention in Portugal?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(2), pages 309-332, June.

    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. 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.
    2. Folster, Stefan & Henrekson, Magnus, 2001. "Growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1501-1520, August.
    3. Hyun Park, 2010. "Fiscal Policy and Equitable Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 121-140, February.
    4. Halkos, George & Paizanos, Epameinondas, 2015. "Fiscal policy and economic performance: A review of the theoretical and empirical literature," MPRA Paper 67737, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Eleftherios Goulas & Athina Zervoyianni, 2012. "Growth, Deficits and Uncertainty in a Panel of 28 Countries," Working Paper series 52_12, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    6. Federica Calidoni, 2004. "Aggregate and Disaggregate Analysis of the Effects of Government Expenditure on Growth," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 160, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    7. Folster, Stefan & Henrekson, Magnus, 1999. "Growth and the public sector: a critique of the critics," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 337-358, June.
    8. Celal Kucuker, 2003. "Türkiye Ýktisat Kongresi Büyüme Stratejileri Çalýþma Grubu," Working Papers 2003/5, Turkish Economic Association.
    9. Mallick, Debdulal, 2012. "The role of the elasticity of substitution in economic growth: A cross-country investigation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 682-694.
    10. Norman Gemmell, 2001. "Fiscal Policy in a Growth Framework," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2001-84, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Rup Singh, 2015. "Forces of economic growth in China, India, and other Asian countries," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 29(1), pages 62-81, May.
    12. Wang, Eric C., 2010. "Determinants of R&D investment: The Extreme-Bounds-Analysis approach applied to 26 OECD countries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 103-116, February.
    13. Hajamini, Mehdi & Falahi, Mohammad Ali, 2018. "Economic growth and government size in developed European countries: A panel threshold approach," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-13.
    14. Heinz Handler & Andreas Knabe & Bertrand Koebel & Margit Schratzenstaller & Sven Wehke, 2005. "The Impact of Public Budgets on Overall Productivity Growth," WIFO Working Papers 255, WIFO.
    15. Almanzar, Miguel & Torero, Maximo, 2017. "Distributional Effects of Growth and Public Expenditures in Africa: Estimates for Tanzania and Rwanda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 177-195.
    16. Agell, Jonas & Lindh, Thomas & Ohlsson, Henry, 1997. "Growth and the public sector: A critical review essay," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 33-52, February.
    17. Diego Romero‐Avila, 2006. "Fiscal Policies And Output In The Long Run: A Panel Cointegration Approach Applied To The Oecd," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 74(3), pages 360-388, June.
    18. Georgy Idrisov & Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev, 2013. "Budget Policy and Economic Growth," Working Papers 0076, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2013.
    19. Churchill, Sefa Awawoyi & Yew, Siew Ling & Ugur, Mehmet, 2015. "Effects of government education and health expenditures on economic growth: a meta-analysis," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 14072, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    20. Arawatari, Ryo & Hori, Takeo & Mino, Kazuo, 2023. "Government expenditure and economic growth: A heterogeneous-agents approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Government spending; Efficiency; Data Envelopment Analysis; Extreme Bounds Analysis; H50;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

    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:spr:eurase:v:1:y:2011:i:1:p:3-28. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.