IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5537.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why Do More Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?

Author

Listed:
  • Dani Rodrik

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that there is a robust empirical association between the extent to which an economy is exposed to trade and the size of its government sector. This association holds for a large cross-section of countries, in low- as well as high-income samples, and is robust to the inclusion of a wide range of controls. The explanation appears to be that government consumption plays a risk-reducing role in economies exposed to a significant amount of external risk. When openness is interacted with explicit measures of external risk, such as terms-of-trade uncertainty and product concentration of exports, it is the interaction terms that enter significantly, and the openness term loses its significance (or turns negative). The paper also demonstrates that government consumption is the majority of countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Dani Rodrik, 1996. "Why Do More Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?," NBER Working Papers 5537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5537
    Note: ITI IFM PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5537.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    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. Cameron, David R., 1978. "The Expansion of the Public Economy: A Comparative Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 1243-1261, December.
    3. Pereira,Luiz Carlos Bresser & Maravall,José María & Przeworski,Adam, 1993. "Economic Reforms in New Democracies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521432597.
    4. Jeffrey A. Frankel & David Romer, 1996. "Trade and Growth: An Empirical Investigation," NBER Working Papers 5476, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Joel Slemrod, 1995. "What Do Cross-Country Studies Teach about Government Involvement, Prosperity, and Economic Growth?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 373-431.
    6. Paul Cashin, 1995. "Government Spending, Taxes, and Economic Growth," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 42(2), pages 237-269, June.
    7. J. P. Neary (ed.), 1995. "International Trade," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 575.
    8. Mr. Peter S. Heller & Mr. Alan A. Tait, 1982. "International Comparisons of Government Expenditure," IMF Occasional Papers 1982/001, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Bates, Robert H. & Brock, Philip & Tiefenthaler, Jill, 1991. "Risk and trade regimes: another exploration," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 1-18, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sylviane GUILLAUMONT JEANNENEY & Ping HUA, 2000. "Economic openness and public expenditure in China: a regional analysis," Working Papers 200005, CERDI.
    2. Kalle Kukk, 2007. "Fiscal Policy Effects on Economic Growth: Short Run vs Long Run," Working Papers 167, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology.
    3. Ahrens, Joachim & Schweickert, Rainer & Zenker, Juliane, 2011. "Varieties of capitalism, governance and government spending: A cross-section analysis," PFH Forschungspapiere/Research Papers 2011/01, PFH Private University of Applied Sciences, Göttingen.
    4. Shelton, Cameron A., 2007. "The size and composition of government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2230-2260, December.
    5. Óscar Bajo Rubio & Carmen Díaz Roldán & M.a Dolores Montávez Garcés, "undated". "Fiscal Policy And Growth Revisited: The Case Of The Spanish Regions," Working Papers 19-02 Classification-JEL , Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.
    6. Richard Kneller & Norman Gemmell, 2002. "Fiscal Policy, Growth and Convergence in Europe," European Economy Group Working Papers 14, European Economy Group.
    7. Patrick Minford & David Meenagh & Jiang Wang, 2006. "Testing a Simple Structural Model of Endogenous Growth," CDMA Conference Paper Series 0606, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis.
    8. María Franco Chuaire & Carlos Scartascini & Mariano Tommasi, 2017. "State capacity and the quality of policies. Revisiting the relationship between openness and government size," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 133-156, July.
    9. Ant Afonso & João Tovar Jalles, 2014. "Fiscal composition and long-term growth," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 349-358, January.
    10. Kueh, Jerome Swee-Hui & Puah, Chin-Hong & Wong, Chiew-Meu, 2008. "Bounds Estimation for Trade Openness and Government Expenditure Nexus of ASEAN-4 Countries," MPRA Paper 12351, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Lucas Menescal & José Alves, 2022. "Optimal threshold taxation: an empirical investigation for developing economies," Working Papers REM 2022/0232, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    12. Kneller, Richard, 2000. "The Implications of the Comprehensive Spending Review for the Long-Run Growth Rate: a View From the Literature," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 171, pages 94-105, January.
    13. Sylviane GUILLAUMONT JEANNENEY & Ping HUA, 2000. "Ouverture économique et dépenses publiques en Chine : une analyse régionale," Working Papers 200006, CERDI.
    14. Rafael Di Tella & Robert J. MacCulloch, 2002. "The Determination of Unemployment Benefits," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(2), pages 404-434, Part.
    15. Shelton, Cameron A., 2008. "The aging population and the size of the welfare state: Is there a puzzle?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 647-651, April.
    16. Norman Gemmell, 2001. "Fiscal Policy in a Growth Framework," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2001-84, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Joachim Ahrens & Rainer Schweickert & Juliane Zenker, 2015. "Varieties Of Capitalism And Government Spending In Developed And Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 40(1), pages 113-136, March.
    18. Bajo-Rubio, Oscar, 2000. "A further generalization of the Solow growth model: the role of the public sector," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-84, July.
    19. Yaya KEHO, 2011. "Tax Structure and Economic Growth in Cote dIvoire: Are Some Taxes Better Than Others?," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 1(4), pages 226-235, December.
    20. Minford, Patrick & Meenagh, David & Wang, Jiang, 2007. "Growth and relative living standards - testing Barriers to Riches on post-war panel data," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2007/12, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • 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:nbr:nberwo:5537. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.