We expand the investigation of the role of Congress in explanations of government growth, building on the work of Kau and Rubin (2002). In addition to reconsidering the importance of the median ideological position of elected representatives they introduced, we allow for the roles of majority party strength and of party control of Congress. We consider the relative importantce of the state of Congress and of trending supply and demand-side economic factors in the evolution and composition of federal spending since 1930, and we use the resulting model to simulate the consequences of the radical and historically unprecedented shift to the right of Congress in 1994/95.
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Paper provided by Carleton University, Department of Economics in its series Carleton Economic Papers with number
07-04.
Find related papers by JEL classification: H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
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Kau, James B & Rubin, Paul H, 2002.
" The Growth of Government:,"
Public Choice,
Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 389-402, December.
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