IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/74078.html

Government size and economic growth in Greece: A smooth transition approach

Author

Listed:
  • Fallahi, Firouz
  • Montazeri Shoorkchali, Jalal

Abstract

This paper tries to verify the existence of the Armey curve, which states that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the government size and the economic growth. To that end, we use annual data over 1961-2008 to examine the existence of Armey curve in Greece. Instead of relying on a binomial model, which is very popular in the literature, we use a smooth transition regression (STR). STR models are very flexible and binomial models are considered as a special case of the STR models. The results show that there is a nonlinear connection, i.e., a threshold effect, between the government spending and the growth rate in the Greek economy. However, since the relationship is positive in both regimes, i.e., before and after the threshold, we cannot confirm the existence of Armey curve in the Greek economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Fallahi, Firouz & Montazeri Shoorkchali, Jalal, 2012. "Government size and economic growth in Greece: A smooth transition approach," MPRA Paper 74078, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:74078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/74078/1/6a6ba1cf08f52069e825ac968dec3b06.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dick van Dijk & Timo Terasvirta & Philip Hans Franses, 2002. "Smooth Transition Autoregressive Models — A Survey Of Recent Developments," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 1-47.
    2. Eric M. Engen & Jonathan Skinner, 1992. "Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 4223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Hansson, Par & Henrekson, Magnus, 1994. "A New Framework for Testing the Effect of Government Spending on Growth and Productivity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 81(3-4), pages 381-401, December.
    4. Saikkonen, Pentti & Lütkepohl, Helmut, 2002. "Testing For A Unit Root In A Time Series With A Level Shift At Unknown Time," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 313-348, April.
    5. Terui, Nobuhiko & van Dijk, Herman K., 2002. "Combined forecasts from linear and nonlinear time series models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 421-438.
    6. Afonso, António & Furceri, Davide, 2010. "Government size, composition, volatility and economic growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 517-532, December.
    7. 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.
    8. Lütkepohl,Helmut & Krätzig,Markus (ed.), 2004. "Applied Time Series Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521547871, January.
    9. Kormendi, Roger C & Meguire, Philip G, 1995. "Government Debt, Government Spending, and Private-Sector Behavior: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1357-1361, December.
    10. Chen, Sheng-Tung & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2005. "Government size and economic growth in Taiwan: A threshold regression approach," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 27(9), pages 1051-1066, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Lütkepohl,Helmut & Krätzig,Markus (ed.), 2004. "Applied Time Series Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521839198, January.
    13. Dar, Atul A. & AmirKhalkhali, Sal, 2002. "Government size, factor accumulation, and economic growth: evidence from OECD countries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 24(7-8), pages 679-692, November.
    14. Folster, Stefan & Henrekson, Magnus, 2001. "Growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1501-1520, August.
    15. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    16. Hannu Tanninen, 1999. "Income inequality, government expenditures and growth," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(9), pages 1109-1117.
    17. Francesco Forte & Cosimo Magazzino, 2011. "Optimal Size Government and Economic Growth in EU Countries," Economia politica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 295-322.
    18. Edmund J. Sheehey, 1993. "The Effect of Government Size on Economic Growth," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 321-328, Summer.
    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. Andrew Phiri, 2017. "Nonlinearities in Wagner's law: further evidence from South Africa," International Journal of Sustainable Economy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 9(3), pages 231-249.
    2. Ayad Hicham, 2020. "Government Expenditure and Economic Growth Nexus in Mena Countries: Frequency Domain Spectral Causality Analysis," Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 34(1), pages 60-77, January.

    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. Facchini, François & Melki, Mickaël, 2013. "Efficient government size: France in the 20th century," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-14.
    3. Shanaka Herath, 2012. "Size Of Government And Economic Growth: A Nonlinear Analysis," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 57(194), pages 7-30, July - Se.
    4. ZAREEN, SHUMAILA & Qayyum, Abdul, 2014. "An Analysis of the Impact of Government Size on Economic Growth of Pakistan: An Endogenous Growth," MPRA Paper 85426, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2015.
    5. Halkos, George & Paizanos, Epameinondas, 2015. "Fiscal policy and economic performance: A review of the theoretical and empirical literature," MPRA Paper 67737, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Akram, Vaseem & Rath, Badri Narayan, 2020. "Optimum government size and economic growth in case of Indian states: Evidence from panel threshold model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 151-162.
    7. Herath, Shanaka, 2009. "The Size of the Government and Economic Growth. An Empirical Study of Sri Lanka," SRE-Discussion Papers 2009/08, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    8. Hüseyin Şen & Ayşe Kaya & Ayşegül Durucan, 2023. "New insights into the growth-maximizing size of government: evidence and implications for Turkey," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 2243-2296, August.
    9. Ehsan Rajabi & Junaina Muhammad, 2014. "Does The Government Size Cause Economic Growth? Empirical Evidence from Selected ASEAN Countries," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 3-20.
    10. Giuseppe Di Liddo & Cosimo Magazzino & Francesco Porcelli, 2015. "Decentralization, Growth And Optimal Government Size In The Italian Regional Framework," Working Papers 0115, CREI Università degli Studi Roma Tre, revised 2015.
    11. Sheraz Rajput & Aziz Tariq, 2019. "Government Size and Economic Growth: A Panel Data Study Comparing OECD and Non-OECD Countries," Asian Journal of Applied Economics/ Applied Economics Journal, Kasetsart University, Faculty of Economics, Center for Applied Economic Research, vol. 26(2), pages 22-37.
    12. Sabrina Auci & Laura Castellucci & Manuela Coromaldi, 2021. "How does public spending affect technical efficiency? Some evidence from 15 European countries," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 108-130, January.
    13. Pula Lekë & Elshani Alban, 2018. "Role of Public Expenditure in Economic Growth: Econometric Evidence from Kosovo 2002–2015," Baltic Journal of Real Estate Economics and Construction Management, Sciendo, vol. 6(1), pages 74-87, June.
    14. Tamoya Christie, 2014. "The Effect Of Government Spending On Economic Growth: Testing The Non-Linear Hypothesis," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 183-204, April.
    15. Robert Pater & Tomasz Skica, 2014. "The productivity of public and private sector in Poland," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center, vol. 10(2), pages 120-137, July.
    16. Dizaji, S.F., 2012. "Exports, government size and economic growth (Evidence from Iran as a developing oil-export based economy)," ISS Working Papers - General Series 535, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    17. Megha Jain & Aishwarya Nagpal & Abhay Jain, 2021. "Government Size and Economic Growth: An Empirical Examination of Selected Emerging Economies," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 10(1), pages 7-39, June.
    18. Alina Cristina Nuta & Florian Marcel Nuta & Viorica Chirila & Angela Roman & Andy Corneliu Pusca, 2015. "Testing the Relationship between Public Expenditure and Economic Growth in Romania," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 11(4), pages 86-102, August.
    19. Alimi, R. Santos, 2014. "Does Optimal Government Size Exist for Developing Economies? The Case of Nigeria," MPRA Paper 56073, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Hajamini, Mehdi & Falahi, Mohammad Ali, 2018. "Economic growth and government size in developed European countries: A panel threshold approach," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-13.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:74078. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.