IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/4272.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Centralizing Tendencies in the Public Sector in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Stegarescu, Dan

Abstract

This paper investigates the long-term trend and the underlying determinants of public sector centralization in Germany from 1871 until today. The institutional and the quantitative review of the German history provides no conclusive evidence for a continuous process of government centralization as suggested by Popitz' "law", but rather for some distinct developments caused by the effects of wars and regime changes. Accordingly, whereas the role of the central government increased continuously at the expense of the state governments untilWorldWar II, after 1950 the state level regained importance. An empirical analysis for the period 1950 to 2001 reveals a signidicant decentralizing effect of per capita income growth, but provides no clear evidence for a causal relationship between economic and European integration and fiscal decentralization in the case of Germany.

Suggested Citation

  • Stegarescu, Dan, 2005. "Centralizing Tendencies in the Public Sector in Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 05-46, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:4272
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/24138/1/dp0546.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ram, Rati, 1987. "Wagner's Hypothesis in Time-Series and Cross-section Perspectives:," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(2), pages 194-204, May.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    3. Charles Blankart, 2000. "The Process of Government Centralization: A Constitutional View," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 27-39, March.
    4. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922.
    5. Stegarescu, Dan, 2004. "Public Sector Decentralization: Measurement Concepts and Recent International Trends," ZEW Discussion Papers 04-74, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Peltzman, Sam, 1980. "The Growth of Government," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(2), pages 209-287, October.
    7. Stegarescu, Dan, 2004. "Economic Integration and Fiscal Decentralization: Evidence from OECD Countries," ZEW Discussion Papers 04-86, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Stegarescu, Dan & Büttner, Thiess & Behnisch, Alexej, 2002. "Public Sector Centralization and Productivity Growth: Reviewing the German Experience," ZEW Discussion Papers 02-03, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Peltzman, Sam, 1980. "The Growth of Government," Working Papers 1, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    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. Thomas Döring & Jan Schnellenbach, 2011. "A tale of two federalisms: Germany, the United States and the ubiquity of centralization," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 83-102, March.

    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. 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.
    2. Randall Holcombe, 2005. "Government growth in the twenty-first century," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 95-114, July.
    3. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Emmanuel Saez, 2016. "Why Can Modern Governments Tax So Much? An Agency Model of Firms as Fiscal Intermediaries," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(330), pages 219-246, April.
    4. Jan Schnellenbach & Lars Feld & Christoph Schaltegger, 2010. "The impact of referendums on the centralisation of public goods provision: a political economy approach," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 3-26, February.
    5. Luca Barbone & Hana Polackova, 1996. "Public Finances and Economic Transition," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 0068, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    6. Thomas A. Garrett & Andrew F. Kozak & Russell M. Rhine, 2010. "Institutions and government growth: a comparison of the 1890s and the 1930s," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(Mar), pages 109-120.
    7. Michael Keen, 1997. "Peculiar institutions: A British perspective on tax policy in the United States," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 371-400, November.
    8. Werner W. Pommerehne, 1983. "Steuerhinterziehung und Schwarzarbeit als Grenzen der Staatstätigkeit," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 119(III), pages 261-284, September.
    9. Besley, Timothy & Smart, Michael, 2007. "Fiscal restraints and voter welfare," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 755-773, April.
    10. Fix, Blair, 2016. "Energy and Institution Size," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2016/04, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    11. Antonio Sciala' & Paolo Liberati, 2008. "The impact of economic openness on the vertical structure of the public sector," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0085, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    12. Steven Pressman, 2004. "What is wrong with public choice," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 3-18.
    13. Holcombe, Randall G., 1998. "Tax Policy From a Public Choice Perspective," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(2), pages 359-371, June.
    14. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell M. Rhine, 2006. "On the size and growth of government," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 88(Jan), pages 13-30.
    15. Mehrdad Vahabi & Philippe Batifoulier & Nicolas Silva, 2020. "A theory of predatory welfare state and citizen welfare: the French case," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 243-271, March.
    16. Bartolini, David & Ninka, Eniel & Santolini, Raffaella, 2017. "Tax Decentralisation, Labour productivity and Employment," MPRA Paper 81070, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Lars P. Feld, 2001. "On Government Centralization and Budget Referendums: Evidence from Switzerland," CESifo Working Paper Series 615, CESifo.
    18. Marco Gallegati & Massimo Tamberi, 2022. "Long swings in the growth of government expenditure: an international historical perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 227-248, September.
    19. Philip J. Grossman, 1992. "Fiscal Decentralization and Public Sector Size in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 68(3), pages 240-246, September.
    20. Dethier, Jean-Jacques, 1999. "Governance and Economic Performance: A Survey," Discussion Papers 279846, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public Sector Centralization; Popitz' Law; Determinants of Centralization; Germany;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

    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:zbw:zewdip:4272. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.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.