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Breaking Wagner's Law: Which Countries Have the Most Limited Government?

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  • Ryan H. Murphy

Abstract

Which countries have the world's smallest and the world's largest governments? One-fifth of the Economic Freedom of the World index is a subindex scoring the size of government for countries across the world. This subindex is inclusive of the three dimensions of government spending, the top marginal tax rate, and the government ownership of the economy. Measured in this manner, the “smallest†governments are, generally, weak or fragile states. This paper recognizes Wagner's law, the empirical regularity that wealthier countries tend to spend more as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). It then performs a novel adjustment to the size of government data to account for Wagner's law, re-scores and re-ranks the countries, and explores the results.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryan H. Murphy, 2022. "Breaking Wagner's Law: Which Countries Have the Most Limited Government?," Public Finance Review, , vol. 50(4), pages 484-509, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:50:y:2022:i:4:p:484-509
    DOI: 10.1177/10911421221107426
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Oliver E. Williamson, 2000. "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 595-613, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ryan H. Murphy, 2025. "Social Repression and Variation within the Human Freedom Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 177(3), pages 1193-1212, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative

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