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Le secteur public : moteur de croissance ou obstruction à l’industrie?

Author

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  • Dudley, Leonard

    (C.R.D.E., Département de sciences économiques, Université de Montréal)

  • Montmarquette, Claude

    (C.R.D.E., Département de sciences économiques, Université de Montréal)

Abstract

Three commonly used measures of the impact of public spending yield conflicting results: one suggests that the public sector should be small, another that it should be large, and the third that it does not matter. Here, we avoid the problems of each approach by formulating a model in which the government maximizes output subject to a social contract that fixes the spending shares of public consumption and transfers. We find that public consumption has a positive effect and transfers a negative effect on output. The optimal size of the total public sector is about 25 percent of GDP. Trois mesures sont proposées dans la littérature récente pour évaluer l’impact des dépenses gouvernementales sur la croissance économique : premièrement, la croissance du revenu per capita est régressée sur la taille relative du secteur public, deuxièmement, la croissance du PIB est régressée sur le taux de croissance de la consommation publique et, enfin, on a effectué des tests de causalité à la Granger entre les dépenses publiques passées et l’output courant. Les trois mesures fournissent des conclusions contradictoires : l’une suggère que le secteur public devrait être réduit, l’autre qu’il devrait être important et, la dernière, que cela n’a pas d’importance. Dans cet article, nous contournons les problèmes reliés à chacune de ces approches en considérant un modèle dans lequel le gouvernement maximise l’output sous la contrainte d’un contrat social qui fixe les parts des dépenses de consommation publique et des transferts. Nous trouvons que la consommation publique a un effet positif et les transferts un effet négatif sur la productivité totale des facteurs. Si les transferts sont contraints de représenter la moitié du secteur public, la taille optimale de l’ensemble du secteur public est d’environ 25 % du PIB.

Suggested Citation

  • Dudley, Leonard & Montmarquette, Claude, 1999. "Le secteur public : moteur de croissance ou obstruction à l’industrie?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(1), pages 357-377, mars-juin.
  • Handle: RePEc:ris:actuec:v:75:y:1999:i:1:p:357-377
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