IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/macdyn/v17y2013i02p356-372_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring Cross-Country Variation In Government Shares: What Can We Learn From Relative Productivities?

Author

Listed:
  • Obrizan, Maksym

Abstract

Government shares in total output are characterized by significant variation across countries. I noticed a strong negative correlation between government consumption shares and the price of government services in terms of private consumption. Motivated by this empirical observation, I developed a neoclassical growth model with added government that is capable of matching the variation in government shares very closely using only relative prices. In addition, I provide empirical evidence showing that the relative price of government consumption increases with income, which is consistent with distortions prevailing in poor countries. These two observations combined imply that government shares tend to be higher in poorer countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Obrizan, Maksym, 2013. "Exploring Cross-Country Variation In Government Shares: What Can We Learn From Relative Productivities?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 356-372, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:17:y:2013:i:02:p:356-372_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1365100511000150/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753.
    3. Khan,M. Shahbaz, 1990. "Relative price changes and the growth of the public sector," Policy Research Working Paper Series 423, The World Bank.
    4. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2007. "Relative Prices and Relative Prosperity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 562-585, June.
    5. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    6. Ram, Rati, 1986. "Government Size and Economic Growth: A New Framework and Some Evidencefrom Cross-Section and Time-Series Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 191-203, March.
    7. Restuccia, Diego & Urrutia, Carlos, 2001. "Relative prices and investment rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 93-121, February.
    8. Robert Summers & Alan Heston, 1991. "The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 327-368.
    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. Wei-Bin Zhang, 2014. "National and International Inequalities in Income and Wealth in a Global Growth with Free Trade and National Inflation Policies," Global Economic Observer, "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest, Faculty of Economic Sciences;Institute for World Economy of the Romanian Academy, vol. 2(1), pages 22-40, May.

    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. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An Empirical Assessment," MPRA Paper 17773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. George Alessandria & Joseph P. Kaboski, 2004. "Violating purchasing power parity," Working Papers 04-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    4. Engen, Eric M. & Skinner, Jonathan, 1996. "Taxation and Economic Growth," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(4), pages 617-642, December.
    5. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2007. "Relative Prices and Relative Prosperity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 562-585, June.
    6. Mohtadi, Hamid & Roe, Terry L., 1997. "Democracy, rent seeking, and growth: Is there a U curve?," Bulletins 7485, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    7. Jørgen Andersen, 2012. "Costs of taxation and the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 83-115, October.
    8. Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, Victoria, 2002. "Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Fiscal Policies on Long-Run Growth," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-028/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 23 Apr 2003.
    9. Fernando, DEL RIO, 2004. "Investment Rate vs Relative price of Investment," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2004010, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    10. Dudley, Leonard & Montmarquette, Claude, 1999. "Le secteur public : moteur de croissance ou obstruction à l’industrie?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(1), pages 357-377, mars-juin.
    11. Isabel Argimon & Jose Gonzalez-Paramo & Jose Roldan, 1997. "Evidence of public spending crowding-out from a panel of OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(8), pages 1001-1010.
    12. Brent Neiman, 2014. "The Global Decline of the Labor Share," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 61-103.
    13. Kosack, Stephen, 2003. "Effective Aid: How Democracy Allows Development Aid to Improve the Quality of Life," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-22, January.
    14. Creedy, John & Moslehi, Solmaz, 2009. "Modelling the composition of government expenditure in democracies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 42-55, March.
    15. Tasso Adamopoulos, 2011. "Transportation Costs, Agricultural Productivity, And Cross‐Country Income Differences," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(2), pages 489-521, May.
    16. Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge & McNab, Robert M., 2003. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 1597-1616, September.
    17. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    18. al-Nowaihi, Ali & Fraser, Clive D., 2007. "Is the public sector too large in an economy with club goods? A case when consumers differ in both tastes and incomes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1018-1031, November.
    19. Åsa Johansson, 2016. "Public Finance, Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of the Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1346, OECD Publishing.
    20. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2004. "Does Libertè = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with Some Evidence on the Transition Economies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 515-537, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical

    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:cup:macdyn:v:17:y:2013:i:02:p:356-372_00. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/mdy .

    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.