This paper demonstrates that there is a robust empirical association between the extent to which an economy is exposed to trade and the size of its government sector. This association holds for a large cross-section of countries, in low- as well as high-income samples, and is robust to the inclusion of a wide range of controls. The explanation appears to be that government consumption plays a risk-reducing role in economies exposed to a significant amount of external risk. When openness is interacted with explicit measures of external risk, such as terms-of-trade uncertainty and product concentration of exports, it is the interaction terms that enter significantly, and the openness term loses its significance (or turns negative). The paper also demonstrates that government consumption is the majority of countries.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
5537.
Length: Date of creation: Apr 1996 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5537
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
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