IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/uunewp/1999_001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Growth and the Public Sector: A reply

Author

Listed:
  • Agell, Jonas

    (Department of Economics)

  • Lindh, Thomas

    (Department of Economics)

  • Ohlsson, Henry

    (Department of Economics)

Abstract

Fölster and Henrekson (1998) claim that they, by addressing a number of econometric problems, can establish that it is likely that economies with a large public sector grow more slowly than economies with a small public sector. But their regressions are fundamentally flawed. Re-estimating their growth equation using theoretically valid instruments, we find that the growth effect of the public sector is statistically insignificant, and much smaller than the point-estimates reported by Fölster and Henrekson. This is consistent with the agnostic conclusion, drawn by us and many others, that cross-country growth regressions are unlikely to give a reliable answer to whether a large public sector is growth promoting or retarding.

Suggested Citation

  • Agell, Jonas & Lindh, Thomas & Ohlsson, Henry, 1998. "Growth and the Public Sector: A reply," Working Paper Series 1999:1, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:1999_001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Andres, Javier & Domenech, Rafael & Molinas, Cesar, 1996. "Macroeconomic performance and convergence in OECD countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1683-1704, December.
    3. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria & Asea, Patrick, 1997. "On the ineffectiveness of tax policy in altering long-run growth: Harberger's superneutrality conjecture," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 99-126, October.
    4. Joel Slemrod, 1995. "What Do Cross-Country Studies Teach about Government Involvement, Prosperity, and Economic Growth?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 373-431.
    5. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1995. "The Welfare State and Economic Performance," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 48(2), pages 171-98, June.
    6. 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.
    7. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1995. "The Welfare State and Economic Performance," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 48(2), pages 171-198, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    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. Christoph Schaltegger & Benno Torgler, 2006. "Growth effects of public expenditure on the state and local level: evidence from a sample of rich governments," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1181-1192.
    4. Agell, Jonas, 1996. "Why Sweden's Welfare State Needed Reform," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(439), pages 1760-1771, November.
    5. 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.
    6. Matthew Higgins & Andrew Young & Daniel Levy, 2009. "Federal, state, and local governments: evaluating their separate roles in US growth," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 493-507, June.
    7. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:8:y:2007:i:4:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Norman Gemmell, 2001. "Fiscal Policy in a Growth Framework," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2001-84, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Agell, Jonas & Ohlsson, Henry & Thoursie, Peter Skogman, 2006. "Growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries: A comment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 211-218, January.
    12. Margit Schratzenstaller, 2006. "Teilstudie 12: Wachstumsimpulse durch die öffentliche Hand," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 27451, April.
    13. Diego Enrique Pinilla Rodríguez & Juan de Dios Jiménez Aguilera & Roberto Montero Granados, 2013. "Gasto público y crecimiento económico. Un estudio empírico para América Latina," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, May.
    14. Joel Slemrod, 1995. "What Do Cross-Country Studies Teach about Government Involvement, Prosperity, and Economic Growth?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 373-431.
    15. Yuhn, Ky-hyang & Bennett, Christopher S., 2016. "A Note On The Bush Tax Cuts: Did They Succeed In Stimulating Business Investment?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(6), pages 1623-1639, September.
    16. Nijkamp, Peter & Poot, Jacques, 2004. "Meta-analysis of the effect of fiscal policies on long-run growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 91-124, March.
    17. Petrakos, George & Dimitris, Kallioras & Ageliki, Anagnostou, 2007. "A Generalized Model of Regional Economic Growth in the European Union," Papers DYNREG12, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    18. Åsa Johansson, 2016. "Public Finance, Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of the Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1346, OECD Publishing.
    19. Peter Lindert, 2003. "Why The Welfare State Looks Like a Free Lunch," Working Papers 59, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    20. Kalle Kukk, 2007. "Fiscal Policy Effects on Economic Growth: Short Run vs Long Run," Working Papers 167, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology.
    21. Magnus Henrekson & Jesper Roine, 2007. "Promoting Entrepreneurship in the Welfare State," Chapters, in: David B. Audretsch & Isabel Grilo & A. Roy Thurik (ed.), Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship Policy, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic growth; public sector; taxation; government expenditure; cross-country regressons;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:uunewp:1999_001. 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: Ulrika Öjdeby (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nekuuse.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.