“瓦格纳法则”在中国适用性研究

"瓦格纳法则"认为,一国的公共部门,特别是政府部门的规模将随经济的增长而扩大,经济增长是财政支出增长的原因。实证分析表明,中国的经济增长和财政支出存在长期的均衡关系和格兰杰因果关系,"瓦格纳法则"在中国是成立的。     

Asymmetric output growth effects of government spending: Cross-sectional and panel data evidence

Using a model that accommodates asymmetric adjustments of output growth to changes in growth of government spending, the effects of aggregate and disaggregate government spending variables on output growth are examined. Both cross-section and panel regression estimations are conducted. Robustness of results to joint-endogeneity of output and government spending, alternative conditioning variables, and cointegration is investigated. Aggregate government spending appears to have positive output growth effects particularly in periods of below-trend growth in this variable. The government sector's productivity appears to be higher than non-government sector's productivity when spending growth is below-trend growth and only for non-OECD countries; no differences in sectoral productivities are detected for OECD countries. Government consumption spending has no significant output growth effects, but government investment spending has positive output growth effects particularly when its growth falls below its trend-growth; this favorable effect turns negative when government investment spending growth exceeds its trend-growth. Results are robust across alternative model specifications and estimation methods.     

BUDGET BALANCE THROUGH SPENDING CUTS OR TAX ADJUSTMENTS?

This article explores the causal (lead/lag) relation between government spending and taxation in two developing countries (Lebanon and Tunisia). Both countries have suffered from large budget deficit and/or national debt problems, particularly since the early 1990s. Empirical results deduced from a battery of tests suggest that decisions to spend and tax are significantly interdependent in both countries. Moreover, the evidence is consistent with the notion that raising taxes (working primarily through aroused public awareness) provokes spending cuts. Thus, higher taxes seem an optimal resolution to the deficit predicament in both countries.     

The effectiveness of government spending on education and health care in developing and transition economies

Recent studies show that corruption is associated with higher military spending [Eur. J. Polit. Econ. 17 (2001) 794] and lower government spending on education and health care [J. Publ. Econ. 69 (1998) 263]. This suggests that policies aimed at reducing corruption may lead to changes in the composition of government outlays toward more productive spending. However, little empirical evidence has been presented to support the claim that public spending improves education and health indicators in developing and transition countries. This paper uses cross-sectional data for 50 such countries to show that increased public expenditure on education and health care is associated with improvements in both access to and attainment in schools, and reduces mortality rates for infants and children. The education regressions are robust to different specifications, but the relationship between health care spending and mortality rates is weaker.     

财政支出与经济发展关系*——对瓦格纳法则的新解释

财政支出规模和结构反映了一个政府为实现其职能所进行的活动范围和公共政策的倾向。研究财政支出最重要的理论之一就是瓦格纳法则。本文使用2011年GFS和WDI数据库的截面数据,从政府财政支出总额及其构成验证了瓦格纳法则的成立,并通过国际比较,为优化我国财政支出结构提供建议。根据以往文献对瓦格纳法则的定义,笔者把政府财政支出占GDP比重对人均GDP（对数值）回归得到估计系数,称为瓦格纳法则系数,据此考察瓦格纳法则。回归结果显示,财政总支出的瓦格纳法则系数为371。这表明经济发展与财政总支出规模之间存在显著的正相关关系。换言之,财政总支出占GDP比重随着经济发展有上升的趋势。分项财政支出占GDP比重对人均GDP对数值的回归结果显示,人均GDP与医疗保健支出、教育支出和社会保护支出之间成正比关系,但与公共秩序和安全、住房和社区设施支出之间成反比。在此基础上,笔者计算了各分项财政支出对瓦格纳法则系数的贡献度,其中以社会保护支出的贡献度最大（7166%）,经济事务支出贡献度最低（-738%）。研究表明,瓦格纳法则成立的主要原因是社会保护支出与经济发展之间的正向关系。     

The dynamic effects of monetary policy and government spending shocks on unemployment in the peripheral Euro area countries

In this paper we study the response of unemployment to monetary policy and government spending shocks in the peripheral Euro-area countries. By applying the structural near-VAR methodology, we jointly model area-wide and national variables. Our main finding is that fiscal multipliers vary across countries and the results are consistent with the prediction of the standard New Keynesian model only in Italy and Greece. Instead, in Ireland, Portugal and Spain increases in government spending are recessionary. Thus we find that Keynesian results of fiscal policy seem to prevail in high public-debt countries, whereas non-Keynesian outcomes seem to characterize high private-debt countries. As for the monetary policy shock, we find that it plays an important role, jointly with the other area-wide shocks, as a long-term driver of national unemployment.     

Government size,composition of public spending and economic growth in Brazil

The performance of the fiscal policy is largely affected by the relationship between government size, composition of public spending and economic growth. We use a theoretical framework to find optimal relations among these variables and confront them with a panel data for the Brazilian states. Private capital and government spending are substitute inputs in production as the Brazilian states require provision of public spending to fill gaps in the underdeveloped private sector. Public investment and current government expenditures are combined in fixed ratios in the overall government spending due to strong rigidity of the public budget. The optimal share of public investment is considerably lower than current expenditures, as occurs in developing countries characterized by low economic dynamism. Finally, the average tax burden from the data is below the estimated optimal level, meaning that there is space for increasing tax rate without harming economic growth for some Brazilian states.     

Fiscal transparency,government effectiveness and government spending efficiency: Some international evidence based on panel data approach

The global financial crisis and the debt crisis of the EU countries revealed serious weaknesses in fiscal reporting. As a consequence, uncertainties regarding the real situation of the public accounts of the countries raised doubts in relation to the effectiveness of government policies. Since then, countries are undertaking reforms in order to improve fiscal transparency. This paper analyzes whether countries are making efforts to enhance fiscal transparency, and whether fiscal transparency affects government effectiveness and government spending efficiency. We consider two channels through which this effect occurs. The first channel is indirect and it works through public debt. The second channel is the direct effect that transparency has on government effectiveness and government spending efficiency once transparency enhances accountability and thus the task of resource allocation. We use a sample of 82 countries (68 developing and 14 developed) for the period 2006–2014, and panel data analysis. Comparing the scores of fiscal transparency between 2006 and 2014, we observe that approximately 80 per cent of the countries made efforts to improve fiscal transparency. The results suggest fiscal transparency is important to reduce public debt and to improve government effectiveness and government spending efficiency.     

How does population aging affect the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus over the business cycle?

What is the impact of population aging on the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus over the business cycle? We address this question by estimating state-dependent fiscal multipliers in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A government spending shock is identified as a forecast error of government spending and its output effect is estimated by using the local projection method. We find that there is no effect of population aging on output effects of fiscal spending shocks in expansionary times, whereas in recessions the output effects of fiscal spending shocks are weakened as population ages. This result points to important policy implications in that population aging would call for a larger fiscal stimulus to support aggregate demand during recession. Thus, this requires a larger fiscal space to allow for a wider swing of the fiscal position without creating concerns for fiscal sustainability.     

The effect of remittances on democratic institutions

Do remittances promote stronger democratic institutions in developing countries? We study the effect of workers’ remittances on the quality of democracy in developing countries, and examine how government spending mediates the effect of workers’ remittances on the quality of democratic institutions. Using a dynamic panel estimator on data from 133 developing countries over 1972–2012, we find that workers’ remittances improve the quality of democratic institutions. We also find that workers’ remittances are more effective in promoting democratic institutions in developing countries with low government spending.     

Taxation, growth, and the spirit of capitalism

This paper uses a general two-sector model of endogenous growth to examine how the spirit of capitalism affects the relation between public finance and growth. The spirit of capitalism is defined as acquisitive personal objectives. We find that if the spirit of capitalism is present, an increase in the share of government spending in output reduces the long-run growth rate. The negative relationship between fiscal spending and growth is consistent with empirical evidence.     

Increasing Public Expenditure: Wagner's Law in OECD Countries

Abstract. The paper proposes a panel cointegration analysis of the joint development of government expenditure and economic growth in 23 Organization Economic Cooperation and Development countries. The empirical evidence provides indication of a structural positive correlation between public spending and per‐capita gross domestic product (GDP), which is consistent with the so‐called Wagner's law. A long‐run elasticity larger than 1 suggests a more than proportional increase of government expenditure with respect to economic activity. In addition, according to the spirit of the law, we found that the correlation is usually higher in countries with lower per‐capita GDP, suggesting that the catching‐up period is characterized by a stronger development of government activities with respect to economies in a more advanced state of development.     

Policy volatility and growth

The paper aims to examine how fiscal and monetary volatility might affect the balanced economic growth rate using a standard monetary growth model characterized by nominal wage rigidity and productive public spending. The model shows that any type of shock — monetary or fiscal — can generate either a negative or positive relationship between short-run volatility and long-run growth, critically depending on the size of government and the elasticity of output with respect to labor/capital. In particular, given the labor income share, it shows that excessive government spending may cause the impact of fiscal volatility on long-run growth to turn from positive to negative. In addition, a rise in the volatility of the monetary shock is capable of generating either an increase or decrease in the mean of growth. With the range of the labor share values in reality, the model produces results consistent with the fact that the relationship between volatility and growth is generally found empirically to be more negative in developing than in developed countries. The model can be seen as a further explanation for the ambiguous empirical evidence in the existing literature.     

Short- and long-term relation between economic development and government spending: the role of quality of institutions

ABSTRACT

This paper tests the Wagner’s assumption of the one-sided directional flow moving from economic growth to public spending considering an international database over the 1996–2012 period. By using indicators on the level of country control of corruption, government effectiveness, political stability, rule of law, regulatory quality and voice and accountability, the paper analyses the economic performance-public spending nexus controlling for the quality of the institutions. The empirical evidence supports the existence of the Wagner’s law, showing that, in the short-run, public spending positively reacts to a positive shock in national income, with a lower magnitude for democratic countries. In the long run, the error-correction model shows the convergence between public spending and national output occurring less quickly for non-democratic, low-income and to a smaller extent for non-OECD countries. Institutional quality, such as effort in controlling corruption and the presence of regulations that permit and promote private sector development, may help reducing the amount of per capita public spending and making it more productive. Higher expenses in compositional amenities such as public services for the elderly may explain why public spending per capita will increase the most in economies with a higher share of the population that need healthcare facilities.     

Identifying fiscal policy (in)effectiveness from the differential counter‐cyclicality of government spending in the interwar period

Differences across decades in the counter‐cyclical stance of fiscal policy can identify whether the growth in government spending affects output growth and so speeds recovery from a recession. We study government‐spending reaction functions from the 1920s and 1930s for twenty countries. There are two main findings. First, surprisingly, government spending was less counter‐cyclical in the 1930s than in the 1920s. Second, the growth of government spending did not have a significant effect on output growth, so that there is little evidence that this feature of fiscal policy played a stabilizing role in the interwar period.     

财政规模决定:一个经验模型

在借鉴国外财政规模实证分析建模方法的基础上,我们重新澄清了研究中国财政规模决定的逻辑起点和理论建模方向.我们认为,工业化、城市化、人口结构等市场内生变量不能较好地解释20世纪70年代末以来我国财政规模的演变,相反,揭示我国经济社会转型的外生制度变量--经济分权和财政分权,连同显示市场交易总规模的国民收入变量,能够较好地解释这种变化.理论上,作者所构建的简单计量模型分离出了市场与政府之间的替代效应和互补效应,前者反映了市场边界与政府边界的重新渐进界定,后者反映了财政学中广为人知的"瓦格纳定律".诚然,沿着这一基本思路还有大量的工作要做.     

Does too much government spending depress the economic development of transition economies? Evidences from dynamic panel threshold analysis

This paper investigates the relationship between government size and economic growth and determines the optimal level of government spending to maximize economic growth. The paper applies a dynamic panel data analysis based upon a threshold model to test the threshold effect of government spending in 26 transition economies over the period spanning 1993–2016. According to the analysis results, government expenditures have a threshold effect on economic growth, and there is a non-linear relationship depicted as an Armey curve in these transition economies. The findings indicate that a government size above the threshold government spending level adversely affects economic growth, while a government size below the threshold level has a positive effect. Furthermore, there is a statistically significant relationship between the two variables above and below that optimal level, even if we divide the sample into developed and developing countries. Our findings suggest that governments in transition economies should consider optimal government size at around the estimated threshold level to support sustainable economic growth.     

Reconsidering Wagner’s law: evidence from the functions of the government

We revisit Wagner’s law by function of government expenditure. Using data of 14 European countries between 1996 and 2013, we apply panel data and SUR methods to assess public expenditure–income elasticities. We find that some functions of government spending for a few countries (e.g. Austria, France, the Netherlands and Portugal) validate Wagner’s law. For the Netherlands, expenditures with environment protection increase more than proportionately to economic growth, and for France that is the case of spending in housing and community amenities. In addition, Greece is the only country where two public spending items react more than one to one to growth.     

THE IMPACT OF TERRORISM AND CONFLICTS ON GROWTH IN ASIA

This paper quantifies the impact of terrorism and conflicts on income per capita growth in Asia for 1970–2004. Our panel estimations show that transnational terrorist attacks had a significant growth-limiting effect. An additional terrorist incident per million persons reduces gross domestic product per capita growth by about 1.5%. In populous countries, many additional attacks are needed to achieve such a large impact. Transnational terrorism reduces growth by crowding-in government expenditures. Unlike developing countries, developed countries are able to absorb terrorism without displaying adverse economic consequences. An internal conflict has the greatest growth concern, more than twice that of transnational terrorism. Conflict variables are associated with smaller investment shares and increased government spending, with the crowding-in of government spending being the dominant influence.     

Voter preferences,direct democracy and government spending

This article uses unique voting data on 331 federal propositions to estimate voter preferences in Swiss cantons. We document that preferences vary systematically with cantonal characteristics. In particular, cantons whose voters are more conservative, less in favor of redistribution and less supportive of public spending tend to have stronger direct democracy. We show that voter preferences have a stable and sizable effect on government spending even conditional on many observable cantonal characteristics. We then revisit the relationship between direct democracy and public spending. Once we fully control for voter preferences, the cross-sectional correlation between direct democracy and government spending declines by roughly 20%. The results in this article provide empirical support for models, in which both voter preferences and direct democratic institutions are important determinants of the size of government.