GOVERNMENT SIZE AND GROWTH: A SURVEY AND INTERPRETATION OF THE EVIDENCE

Abstract The literature on the relationship between the size of government and economic growth is full of seemingly contradictory findings. This conflict is largely explained by variations in definitions and the countries studied. An alternative approach – of limiting the focus to studies of the relationship in rich countries, measuring government size as total taxes or total expenditure relative to GDP and relying on panel data estimations with variation over time – reveals a more consistent picture. The most recent studies find a significant negative correlation: an increase in government size by 10 percentage points is associated with a 0.5% to 1% lower annual growth rate. We discuss efforts to make sense of this correlation, and note several pitfalls involved in giving it a causal interpretation. Against this background, we discuss two explanations of why several countries with high taxes seem able to enjoy above average growth. One hypothesis is that countries with higher social trust levels are able to develop larger government sectors without harming the economy. Another explanation is that countries with large governments compensate for high taxes and spending by implementing market‐friendly policies in other areas. Both explanations are supported by ongoing research.     

PRODUCTIVE GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Abstract.  We provide a comprehensive survey of the recent literature on the link between productive government expenditure and economic growth. We show that an understanding of the core results and the ensuing contributions can be gained from the study of their respective Euler equations. We argue that the existing literature incorporates many relevant aspects; however, policy recommendations tend to hinge on several knife-edge assumptions. Therefore, future research ought to focus more on idea-based endogenous growth models to check the robustness of policy recommendations. Moreover, the inclusion of hitherto unexplored types of government expenditure, e.g. on the 'rule of law', would be desirable.     

Market‐oriented institutions and policies and economic growth: A critical survey

Abstract.  This paper surveys recent evidence suggesting that market‐oriented institutions and policies are strongly related to economic growth, focusing on studies using the economic freedom (EF) indicator of the Fraser Institute. This index is critically discussed. Also various serious shortcomings of empirical studies using this index are identified. Nevertheless, there are strong indications that liberalization, i.e. an increase in the EF index, stimulates economic growth. This paper also reviews studies on the determinants of EF. Political liberalization is often found to enhance economic liberalization, whereas there is less evidence for causality running in the other direction.     

Factor taxation and labor supply in a dynamic one-sector growth model

This paper studies a class of AK-type growth models with factor income taxes, public capital stock and labor–leisure trade offs. While a higher capital tax rate reduces economic growth in the short run, the long-term growth effect is ambiguous and remains ambiguous even if the level of tax rate is larger than the degree of government externality. A higher labor income tax rate has ambiguous growth effects both in the short and long runs. However, if the intertemporal elasticity of substitution for labor supply is sufficiently small, a higher labor tax rate always lowers economic growth in the long run, despite the existence of productive government taxation.     

THE EUROPE–U.S. PRODUCTIVITY GAP IN A REAR‐VIEW MIRROR: WILL MEASUREMENT DIFFERENCES IN THE SERVICES SECTOR OUTPUT PLEASE RISE?

The deterioration in 1995 of Europe's productivity performance relative to the U.S. coincided with the ‘renaissance’ of the U.S. statistical system, which can be regarded, by now, as the frontier in official statistics. This paper raises the natural question whether the European statistical system was ‘left at the station’ while its U.S. counterpart ‘departed’, making it possible for measurement differences to become the primary suspect for the existing productivity gap. My retrospective review of the development path in the services sector productivity statistics suggests that Europe lags significantly behind the U.S. in the services producer price index program, both in terms of scope and timing of its implementation. Accordingly, the role of these measurement differences in the post‐1995 Europe–U.S. productivity story cannot reasonably be ruled out. The paper concludes with a ‘structured guess’ that provides a circumstantial evidence on the benefits generated by the upgrades in the U.S. services sector statistics. The results show that these enhancements led to two kinds of benefits during the post‐1995 period – a considerable reduction in the contribution of industries that traditionally dampened the aggregate productivity trend combined with a larger contribution of those that generally lifted it. This contrasts markedly with Europe where the contribution of these two sources remained unchanged in the meantime.     

Publication Bias in the Economic Freedom and Economic Growth Literature

Abstract.  The impact of institutions on economic performance has attracted significant attention from researchers, as well as from policy reformers. A rapidly growing area in this literature is the impact of economic freedom on economic growth. The aim of this paper was to explore publication bias in this literature by means of traditional funnel plots, meta‐significance testing, as well as by bootstrapping these meta‐significance tests. When all the available estimates are combined and averaged, there seems to be evidence of a genuine and positive economic freedom – economic growth effect. However, it is also shown that the economic freedom – economic growth literature is tainted strongly with publication bias. The existence of publication bias makes it difficult to identify the magnitude of the genuine effect of economic freedom on economic growth. The paper explores the differences between aggregate and disaggregate measures of economic freedom and shows that selection effects are stronger when aggregate measures are used.     

ECONOMETRICS FOR GRUMBLERS: A NEW LOOK AT THE LITERATURE ON CROSS‐COUNTRY GROWTH EMPIRICS

Abstract Since the seminal contribution of N. Gregory Mankiw, David Romer and David N. Weil in 1992 the growth empirics literature has used increasingly sophisticated methods to select relevant growth determinants in estimating cross‐section growth regressions. The vast majority of empirical approaches, however, limit cross‐country heterogeneity in production technology to the specification of total factor productivity, the ‘measure of our ignorance’. In this survey, we present two general empirical frameworks for cross‐country growth and productivity analysis and demonstrate that they encompass the various approaches in the growth empirics literature of the past two decades. We then develop our central argument, that cross‐country heterogeneity in the impact of observables and unobservables on output as well as the time‐series properties of the data are important for reliable empirical analysis.     

经济制度和我国经济增长效率的实证研究

本文根据经济制度和经济增长作用模型,利用一国经济制度和经济增长指标的面板数据（Panel Data）,对经济制度和我国经济增长的作用机制进行实证研究.结果表明,近年来我国经济制度对经济增长不仅是重要而且是有效率的,并且政府对当前的经济增长起着决定性的作用.同时,我国宏观经济治理结构模型表明,我国经济增长存在最佳的经济制度安排,以经济增长为目标的政府治理能够实现我国最优的经济增长.     

Financial development and governance: A panel data analysis incorporating cross-sectional dependence

This study investigates bidirectional causality between governance and financial development using panel data of 101 countries from 1984 to 2013. The financial development–governance nexus is explored using econometric methods robust to cross-sectional dependence, and the relationship between different levels of development and openness is analyzed. Long-run equation estimates show clear evidence that financial development positively affects governance, and this positive impact is found to be robust to three different measures of governance. Further analysis shows that improving governance quality has a positive effect on financial development, while Granger causality tests demonstrate bidirectional causality between financial development and the governance measures. Finally, the impact of financial development on governance is dependent on a country’s level of development and openness. These findings underscore the crucial role of financial development in bringing about good governance reforms and economic growth that, in turn, can further develop the financial sector. As such, a symbiotic and synergistic relationship can persist between good governance, growth, and financial development. The findings provide significant motivation for policymakers to encourage openness and financial sector development to lift the standard of living, especially in emerging economies.     

The distribution of income between labor and capital is not stable: But why is that so and why does it matter?

I review the literature on labor's share of national income in developed and developing countries. These shares have varied systematically over the post-World War II period, rising until the late 1970s and then falling until now. Explanations for the decline in labor's share include technical progress, globalization and a decline in labor's bargaining power, but none of these explanations can account for both the rise and the decline of labor shares over time and for the similar pattern in developed and developing countries. However, movements in oil prices can account for these movements if energy is included in the production function. Such an explanation has broad implications for income distribution, energy conservation and for the modern theory of growth.     

生产性公共支出、最优税收与经济增长

本文在严成樑和龚六堂(2009)的基础上将消费性公共支出内生到家庭的效用函数中,在一个DGE框架下求解竞争性均衡问题,以此来考察生产性公共支出和税收对经济增长的影响。结论表明,生产性支出具有正的产出效应;生产性支出对家庭私人消费、公共消费的影响取决于政府设定的平滑税率。根据经验分析可知,生产性支出对经济的促进作用不如人口效应大,其中,基本建设支出并未对经济起到促进作用,可能已凸显出过度投资、重复建设等问题,这一现象在东西部地区更为明显;教育支出的增加促进了经济增长,并且在东中部地区较明显,而在西部地区仍未体现出来。     

政府债务对经济增长的影响及作用渠道

基于1960～2010年113个国家的面板数据集,运用系统广义矩动态面板方法和稳健性分析,比较发达国家和发展中国家政府债务经济增长效应的差异,并尝试分析政府债务影响经济增长的渠道。研究结果显示,政府债务对经济增长有非线性影响;发达国家政府债务对经济增长、投资以及全要素生产率均无显著影响;发展中国家对政府债务的直接承受力更弱,但在一个宽松的临界点内,政府债务的增加可以提高投资率。     

FDI是否提升了发展中东道国的经济增长质量

利用PCA方法测算主要发展中引资国的经济增长质量,采用静态面板和系统GMM方法考查了FDI的作用及政府的影响。研究发现,亚太、非洲和拉美地区的经济增长质量基本呈稳步上升趋势,FDI显著提升了东道国的增长质量,其贡献主要在于对增长效率和可持续性方面的作用,政府对有效利用外资具有积极作用。子样本分析显示：亚太地区外资作用最为显著,拉美地区政府干预效果最好;政府作用随市场化进程逐渐降低,自由流动的FDI更符合良性增长的要求。     

Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth

This paper surveys the literature on fiscal policy and economic growth. We present a unifying framework for the analysis of long run growth implications of government expenditures and revenues. We find that several tax rates and expenditure categories exhibit a direct impact on the growth rate of the economy. In a creative synthesis we have assigned the relevant literature to the twelve introduced policy variables. Due to the equivalence of some policy variables we are left with six degrees of freedom, where we need four to internalize the model's intrinsic externalities, leaving two instruments to conduct short run fiscal policy.     

市场化进程中的税制结构变迁

本文研究了在市场化进程的不同阶段税制结构与经济增长和福利改善之间的关系。理论研究表明,以商品税为主的税制结构促进了鞍点路径上的经济增长和福利改善,并加速了市场化进程。随着市场化进程的不断推进,当前税制结构对于经济增长和福利改善的正向影响程度逐渐降低,而商品税税率的适度下调可以实现鞍点路径上福利水平最大化。与之相对,商品税占比过高或过低的税制结构,都会出现福利水平的相对损失。实证结果也显示,我国现行税制结构中生产性间接税可以促进经济增长和社会福利的改善,并且市场化程度对这一影响具有显著的调节效应。因此,随着中国经济发展进入“新常态”,政府应进一步简政放权,减少对市场的直接干预,适度调整税制结构,降低间接税比重,实现经济持续增长和福利不断改善。