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Economic growth and government expenditure – evidence of Wagner’s Law in some EU countries

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  • Stoyan Tanchev

Abstract

The article provides an empirical assessment of Wagner's Law for Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Belgium, Austria, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland, Iceland and Norway. The relationship between the growth rates of GDP per capita and government expenditures for the period from the first quarter of 1999 to the second quarter of 2017 was modeled using the autoregressive ARDL method and the Bounds test. According to the results obtained, Wagner's law was confirmed for Bulgaria and Spain, while it did not find support for the other countries. This is further confirmed by the attached Granger causality test.

Suggested Citation

  • Stoyan Tanchev, 2021. "Economic growth and government expenditure – evidence of Wagner’s Law in some EU countries," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 72-87.
    • Handle: RePEc:bas:econth:y:2021:i:1:p:72-87
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

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