Government expenditure and economic growth: A heterogeneous-agents approach

This study examines the relationship between productive government expenditures and economic growth. An R&D-based model of endogenous growth is used, in which agents have heterogeneous entrepreneurial abilities. We show that if the number of high-ability entrepreneurs is non-negligible, then the relationship between the government expenditure/GDP ratio and the economic growth rate is depicted by an inverted U-shaped curve with a flat top. The flat top of the curve indicates that changes in the size of the government expenditures have a limited impact on growth. We calibrate the model using U.S. data and empirically confirm our theoretical predictions. The theoretical and numerical results suggest that the debate on the relationship between the size of the government and economic growth may be off the mark unless the size of the government is extremely large or small.     

Determinants of traveler intention toward animal ethics in tourism: Developing a causal recipe combining cognition,affect, and norm factors

This study investigates the factors that influence travelers' intentions toward animal ethics in tourism, utilizing innovative statistical techniques, namely GSCA_M, necessary condition analysis (NCA), and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA). Through a stringent methodological approach, we tested the structural model, examined necessary and sufficient conditions, and elaborated on potential configurations resulting from the complex interactions of cognitive, affective, and normative antecedents that influence a traveler's intention to support animal ethics in tourism. In doing so, the study contributes novel insights by identifying four types of predictors: 1) necessary and sufficient, 2) necessary but insufficient, 3) unnecessary but sufficient, and 4) unnecessary and insufficient variables. Our results demonstrate that emotional involvement (EI) and moral norms (MN) significantly affect intention toward animal ethics in tourism (INT). Ethical concern (EC) is necessary but not sufficient to induce INT, while MN is both necessary and sufficient for INT.