IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v39y1982i2p221-243.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The growth of government in Italy: Evidence from 1861 to 1979

Author

Listed:
  • Michele Fratianni
  • Franco Spinelli

Abstract

That the public sector has grown both in absolute terms and relative to the rest of the economy is an undisputable fact. That both growth rates have accelerated in recent history is also an unchallenged fact. More cautious must we be about why these trends have occurred and are persisting. We have tested three partially competing theories of government growth using Italian annual data from 1861 to 1979 and assessed that the redistribution model explains the facts better than either the public goods model or the specialized-interest hypothesis, although the latter tells the most convincing story about the causes underlying transfers to firms. We have also tried to discriminate between two competing views of a politician: the value-free intermediary found in the median voter literature and the entrepreneur emphasized in the theory of agency costs. The bits of evidence we gathered are more consistent with a politician-entrepreneur than a politician-intermediary. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1982

Suggested Citation

  • Michele Fratianni & Franco Spinelli, 1982. "The growth of government in Italy: Evidence from 1861 to 1979," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 221-243, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:39:y:1982:i:2:p:221-243
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00162116
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00162116
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00162116?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. G. Warren Nutter, 1978. "Growth of Government in the West," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 925130, September.
    2. Harold Demsetz, 1979. "The Growth of Government," UCLA Economics Working Papers 157, UCLA Department of Economics.
    3. Peltzman, Sam, 1980. "The Growth of Government," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(2), pages 209-287, October.
    4. Durbin, J, 1970. "Testing for Serial Correlation in Least-Squares Regression When Some of the Regressors are Lagged Dependent Variables," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(3), pages 410-421, May.
    5. 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.
    6. William H. Meckling, 1976. "Values and the Choice of the Model of the Individual in the Social Sciences," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 112(IV), pages 545-560, December.
    7. Frey, Bruno S, 1979. " Politometrics of Government Behavior in a Democracy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 81(2), pages 308-322.
    8. Brunner, Karl & Meckling, William H, 1977. "The Perception of Man and the Conception of Government," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 9(1), pages 70-85, February.
    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. Michele Fratianni, 2012. "150 years of Italian political unity and economic dualism: An Introduction," Rivista italiana degli economisti, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 335-346.
    2. Nadia Fiorino & Roberto Ricciuti, 2009. "Interest Groups and Government Spending in Italy, 1876-1913," CESifo Working Paper Series 2722, CESifo.
    3. I. Abedian & B. Standish, 1984. "An Analysis of the Sources of Growth in State Expenditure in South Africa 1920–1982," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 52(4), pages 256-267, December.
    4. Dennis Mueller & Peter Murrell, 1986. "Interest groups and the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 125-145, January.
    5. Magnus Henrekson & Johan Lybeck, 1988. "Explaining the growth of government in Sweden: A disequilibrium approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 213-232, June.
    6. Nadia Fiorino & Roberto Ricciuti, 2008. "Interest Groups, Government Spending and Italian Industrial Growth (1876-1913)," RSCAS Working Papers 2008/08, European University Institute.
    7. Giacomo Di Foggia & Ugo Arrigo, 2015. "The scope of public organisations with productive functions: insights from the inefficiency of Italian local public transport," European Journal of Government and Economics, Europa Grande, vol. 4(2), pages 134-154, December.

    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. Birdsall, Nancy & James, Estelle, 1992. "Health, government, and the poor : the case for the private sector," Policy Research Working Paper Series 938, The World Bank.
    2. Dennis Mueller & Peter Murrell, 1986. "Interest groups and the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 125-145, January.
    3. Giorgio Brosio & Carla Marchese, 1988. "The Growth of Government under Different Redistributive Rules: A Long Term Study of the Italian Case," Public Finance Review, , vol. 16(4), pages 439-463, October.
    4. James Kau & Paul Rubin, 1981. "The size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 261-274, January.
    5. Allan Meltzer & Scott Richard, 1983. "Tests of a rational theory of the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 403-418, January.
    6. Michael Marlow, 1986. "Private sector shrinkage and the growth of industrialized economies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 143-154, January.
    7. 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.
    8. Steven A. Meyer & Shigeto Naka, 1999. "The Determinants Of Japanese Local‐Benefit Seeking," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 17(1), pages 87-96, January.
    9. Randall Holcombe, 2005. "Government growth in the twenty-first century," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 95-114, July.
    10. 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.
    11. Panayiotis C. Afxentiou & Apostolos Serletis, 1991. "A Time-Series Analysis of the Relationship Between Government Expenditure and Gdp in Canada," Public Finance Review, , vol. 19(3), pages 316-333, July.
    12. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2005. "Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 897-931, June.
    13. Mr. Hyun Park, 2006. "Expenditure Composition and Distortionary Tax for Equitable Economic Growth," IMF Working Papers 2006/165, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Casey B. Mulligan & Ricard Gil & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2004. "Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 51-74, Winter.
    15. Robert Moffitt, 1999. "Explaining Welfare Reform: Public Choice and the Labor Market," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(3), pages 289-315, August.
    16. Evan Osborne, 2003. "Unlucky or Bad? Economic Policy and Economic Growth," ISER Discussion Paper 0583, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    17. Daniel E. Ingberman & Robert P. Inman, 1987. "The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy," NBER Working Papers 2405, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Luca Barbone & Hana Polackova, 1996. "Public Finances and Economic Transition," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 0068, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    19. Rockoff, Hugh, 1999. "World War II and the growth of the U.S. federal government," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 245-262, April.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    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:kap:pubcho:v:39:y:1982:i:2:p:221-243. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.