Social security expenditure and GDP in OECD countries: A cointegrated panel analysis

Abstract

Using panel data unit root tests and panel cointegration tests, as well as estimation techniques appropriate for heterogeneous panels such as the full modified OLS, this paper re-examines the long-run co-movement and the causal relationship between GDP and social security expenditure in a bivariate model, employing data on 25 OECD countries from 1980 to 2001. Our cointegration test results show strong evidence in favour of the existence of a long-run equilibrium cointegrating relationship between GDP and social security expenditure after allowing for a heterogeneous country effect. Regarding the panel-based error correction model, we find that GDP and social security expenditure lack short-run causality, but reveal the existence of long-run bidirectional causality. This shows that, in the long run, economic growth must be based on a social welfare policy that should be carried out, and economic growth can facilitate contiguous development in a social welfare policy. Lastly, we also provide evidence to support that social security expenditure can affect growth through the savings and human capital accumulation in OECD countries.     

人口转变、经济发展与卫生支出增长——以人口普查为基础的因素分解

采用因素分解方法考察中国卫生支出在过去近30年的增长特点,将卫生总费用增长及卫生总费用占GDP比重的变化,分解为人口数量增长、人口结构变动、健康模式变化和非人口学因素影响四个独立可比的部分。结果显示,尽管非人口学因素决定着卫生总费用增长,人口学因素却主导着卫生总费用占GDP比重的变化。人口学因素中,人口总量缓慢增长和人口结构快速转变推动着卫生支出规模不断上升,但健康模式变化显著削弱了这种趋势。     

The growth of public expenditure in the United Kingdom, 1960-86

This paper investigates the growth of government expenditure in the United Kingdom over the period 1960-86. Three features of this growth stand out. First, general government expenditure has grown, in real terms, over the past 25 years, at a rate faster than real GDP; as a consequence it has also grown as a percentage of GDP. Second, the impetus for expenditure growth has been provided by transfer payments and spending on health and defence, and finally attempts to control expenditure have fallen mainly on investment plans. The paper then goes on to examine various explanations for this growth in expenditure. After examining the role of demographic, social, economic and political factors, the paper concludes that an important additional reason lies in the failure to control expenditure. Thus a large part of the expenditure growth has not been planned but instead has arisen out of a failure of the institutional machinery designed to control such expenditure to ensure that expenditure outturns do not exceed plans.     

Fiscal rules in a monetary economy: Implications for growth and welfare

This study considers two fiscal rules, a debt rule that controls the debt‐to‐gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, and an expenditure rule that controls the expenditure‐to‐GDP ratio, in a monetary growth model with financial intermediation. Tightening of fiscal rules promotes economic growth and thus, benefits future generations. However, there could be two equilibria of the nominal interest rates, and the welfare effects of the rules on the current generation are different between the two equilibria. In particular, the effects of a decreased debt‐to‐GDP ratio depend on its initial ratio; a high (low)‐ratio country has no incentive (an incentive) to reduce the ratio further from the viewpoint of the current generation's welfare. This result provides an explanation for difficulties with fiscal reform in countries with already high debt‐to‐GDP ratios.     

中国区域经济分化与空间动能解析

1949—2019年，中国各省份经济总量不平等程度先下降后上升，在近十年的短周期内也呈现先下降后上升的态势；而人均实际GDP不平等程度则处于水平波动的状态，近年来呈现σ趋同态势，并在2019年出现β趋同的新迹象。创新能力较弱、政府债务率偏高和劳动人口占比偏低是当前落后地区增长动能匮乏的重要原因。研发支出、资本存量和就业规模是区域经济差距形成的主要原因，可以解释1999—2019年省级层面GDP差异的889%和人均GDP差异的591%，其中研发支出与就业规模是地区GDP总量分化的主因，研发支出与资本存量是地区人均GDP分化的主因。空间计量分析发现，中国区域经济增长的空间溢出效应显著存在，但研发支出、资本存量和就业规模的空间溢出效应存在明显区别，仅周边研发支出对地区经济增长存在正向空间溢出效应，并且东中西三大经济带的空间溢出效应存在一定差异。     

Robust determinants of health care expenditure growth

Our aim is to disclose robust explanatory variables for health care expenditure (HCE) growth by introducing to this field of research a method that is especially well suited for situations of ‘model uncertainty’: the Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA). We analyse data for 33 OECD countries over the period 1970–2010 and include – as far as it is statistically feasible – all macroeconomic and institutional determinants of HCE growth in the EBA that have been suggested in the literature. Furthermore, we analyse to what extent outliers in the data influence the results. Our results confirm earlier findings that GDP growth and a variable representing Baumol’s ‘cost disease’ theory emerge as robust and statistically significant determinants of HCE growth. Depending on whether or not outliers are excluded, we find up to six additional robust drivers: the growth in expenditure on health administration, the change in the share of inpatient expenditure in total health expenditure, the (lagged) government share in GDP, the change in the insurance coverage ratio, the growth in land traffic fatalities and the growth in the population share undergoing renal dialysis.     

Foreign direct investment,tax competition and social expenditure

The aim of this paper is to make a first step towards studying the role of social expenditure and its interaction with corporate taxation in determining the destination of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. Using panel data for 18 OECD countries and measuring the extent of social welfare policies by the (public social expenditure)/GDP ratio, we find strong support for the conjecture that redistributive social welfare state policies are valued by multinationals as, for instance, they may signal a government's commitment to social stability.     

Social Expenditure Projections: a Stochastic Approach

This paper develops a stochastic approach to the projection of ratios of social expenditure to GDP in order to examine their sampling properties using simulation methods. The approach involves the translation of informed judgements about the range of variation of variables into distributional parameters. It is suggested that the method can be used in other contexts where projections need to be based on variables whose distributional characteristics cannot be obtained from a time series of data, either because there are few data or because there are good reasons for believing that past variations give little insight into potential future variations. The results suggest that while the standard approach generates unbiased values, these may be associated with quite large standard errors. In making projections, it is therefore recommended that serious consideration should be given to the likely variability in the component distributions. In particular, the results are sensitive to assumptions regarding the growth rate of productivity.     

公共支出转型及其经济发展效应研究

笔者基于政府职能转变视角,考察了公共支出转型中的规模与结构变化,并对其经济发展效应进行了实证分析。研究发现:(1)中国公共支出已经由经济建设型转向公共服务型;(2)公共支出规模与经济增长率和社会不公平指数正相关;(3)经济建设性支出占总支出比重与经济增长率负相关,与社会不公平指数正相关;(4)公共服务性支出占总支出比重与经济增长率正相关,与社会不公平指数负相关。     

Economic growth and budgetary components: a panel assessment for the EU

In this article, we test to determine whether a reallocation of government budgetary components can enhance long-term GDP growth in a set of 15 EU countries. We apply panel data techniques to the period 1971–2006, and use three alternative dependent variables in a growth regression: economic growth, total factor productivity and labour productivity. Our results also identify the distortions induced by public expenditure in the private factors allocation. In particular, we detect a strong crowding-in effect associated to public investment, which has enhanced economic growth by boosting private investment. We also associate a dependence of productivity on public expenditure on social security.     

Fiscal consolidation with high growth: A policy simulation model for India

In this paper a fiscal consolidation program for India has been presented based on a policy simulation model that enables us to examine the macroeconomic implications of alternative fiscal strategies, given certain assumptions about other macro policy choices and relevant exogenous factors. The model is then used to estimate the outcomes resulting from a possible strategy of fiscal consolidation in the base case. The exercise shows that it is possible to have fiscal consolidation while at the same time maintaining high GDP growth of around 8% or so. The strategy is to gradually bring down the revenue deficit to zero by 2014–15, while allowing a combined fiscal deficit for centre plus states of about 6% of GDP. This provides the space for substantial government capital expenditure, which translates to a significant public investment program. This in turn leads to high overall investment directly and indirectly, via the crowding in effect on private investment, which drives the high GDP growth. The exercise has also tested the robustness of this strategy under two alternative scenarios of higher and lower advanced country growth compared to the base case.     

Functional components of public expenditure,fiscal consolidations,and economic activity

This paper analyses how the functional components of public expenditure and spending‐driven consolidations affect the economic growth, unemployment, and income inequality. A dynamic panel data least squares dummy variable estimator estimator is employed over a sample of 15 European Union countries during the period 1990–2012. The empirical results show that real GDP growth decreases when fiscal austerity measures are implemented, especially if they are spending‐driven. Cuts in public expenditure undermine economic growth, namely if they slash spending on public order, recreation, and education. Spending cuts on education, in particular, affect the investment in human capital, harming not only growth but also economic, social, and human development. The unemployment rate also proved to be significantly boosted when austerity measures restrict spending on education, whereas income inequality rises when social protection expenditures are cut.     

地方政府消费支出与经济增长非线性门限关系研究——来自我国省级面板数据的经验证据

以我国31个省(市、自治区)1998~2008年间平衡面板数据为样本,运用面板门限模型,以实际GDP中政府消费支出所占的比重作为衡量指标进行门限测试,对地方政府消费支出与经济增长的关系进行实证研究。结果表明存在单一门限效果,其门限值为19.93%,门限值两边影响系数分别为正相关、负相关,并且都显著,即存在一正一负的非线性关系。因此,我国各级政府要合理安排政府消费支出,实现经济健康稳定增长。     

江苏省财政科技支出与经济增长的协整关系研究

在对财政科技支出与经济增长关系的相关文献进行回顾的基础上,综合运用协整分析、因果关系检验等计量方法定量分析江苏省财政科技支出总量与江苏省国内生产总值之间关系。结论是：江苏省财政科技支出与经济增长之间存在正向的长期稳定的均衡关系,江苏省国内生产总值不是财政科技支出的格兰杰原因,江苏省财政科技支出是国内生产总值的格兰杰原因。最后分析结果,提出相关政策建议。     

Aging: Some Pleasant Fiscal Arithmetic

Projections of age-related public expenditure growth have raised widespread concerns about fiscal sustainability. This paper examines how total expenditure would develop under four policy rules on public expenditure growth. Some simple arithmetic of expenditure, GDP, and population is reviewed and applied in simulations for 19 OECD countries over 2000–50. A general and a specific conclusion arise from the results. Generally, long-term expenditure projections could benefit from revisiting common assumptions on non-age-related expenditure growth. Specifically, realistic gradual adjustment in non-age-related expenditures could go a long way towards maintaining fiscal sustainability under age-related spending pressures.

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。     

Optimal fiscal policy under monopolistic competition with firm heterogeneity

Government spending is a policy instrument used to sustain economic development and improve social welfare. Empirical observations, however, reveal a significant decrease in the government spending to GDP ratio for the United States. In addition, the United States has been observed to exhibit a rise in firm heterogeneity in productivity in recent decades. This paper shows that the optimal size of government expenditure will decrease as firm heterogeneity increases. We thus indicate that the rise in firm heterogeneity in productivity may serve as a plausible vehicle to explain the decline in the share of government spending in GDP for the United States.     

Endogenous longevity,public debt and endogenous growth

This study explores the mechanism that causes an inverted U-shaped relationship between the public debt to GDP ratio and the economic growth rate which is observed in empirical studies. We show that this relationship is caused even when the government does not introduce the golden rule of public finance, and government health care expenditure has important role in generating this relationship.     

The role of ageing in the growth of government and social welfare spending in the OECD

Government expenditure as a share of GDP in the OECD rose at an annual growth rate of 1.02% in the period between 1970 and 1997. Government spending has increased most on functions particularly demanded by elderly population: social welfare, health and defence. Ageing is the main driving force of the growth of government spending, followed by relative prices and population. However, we also find that the other age groups react to ageing, thereby preventing increases in benefits per retired persons and that institutional reforms have been successful at reducing the impact of ageing on pensions in recent years.     

Is social protection a necessity or a luxury good? New multivariate cointegration panel data results

The aim of this paper is to test the claim that social protection is a luxury good. Therefore, GDP elasticity of selected social protection expenditure is estimated using a new econometric approach developed first by Kao and Chiang (Advances in Econometrics, 15, 179–222, 2000). Time series properties of selected social expenditure in 18 OECD countries from 1981 to 1998 are examined. Using panel data cointegration tests and OLS, FMOLS and DOLS estimators, results were found which differ from previous analyses reporting substantially higher income elasticities. With the FMOLS, selected social expenditure has income elasticities smaller than one but greater than one with the DOLS. It is noteworthy that whether selected social expenditure is stationary or nonstationary may have critical implications for researchers and policy makers desiring to model and explain the impact of this expenditure on a country economic system.