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Wagner’s law vs. Keynes’ hypothesis in very different countries (Armenia and Spain)

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  • Sedrakyan, Gohar Samvel
  • Varela-Candamio, Laura

Abstract

There is considerable controversy in the economic literature concerning whether particular government expenditures have an impact on economic growth. This study analyzes the macroeconomic magnitude of government expenditures in Armenia and Spain and evaluates whether there exists a causal relationship between government expenditures and economic growth, and vice versa (Keynes’ hypothesis and Wagner’s law). The study employs the VAR methodology to analyze annual data for the years 1996–2014. By utilizing Granger causality tests, the study reveals whether the government expenditures are a significant factor in economic growth in short-term perspective. Finally, IRF and FEVD tests are applied to estimate the effects of a change in particular government expenditures on GDP for twelve year time horizon. This study validates the hypothesis that, irrespective of size and nature of the economy (Armenia vs. Spain), some public expenditures (e.g. healthcare) positively contribute to the growth of the economy, while social protection in both countries is negatively related to GDP.

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  • Sedrakyan, Gohar Samvel & Varela-Candamio, Laura, 2019. "Wagner’s law vs. Keynes’ hypothesis in very different countries (Armenia and Spain)," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 747-762.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:41:y:2019:i:4:p:747-762
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2019.02.011
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    3. Temel Gurdal & Mucahit Aydin & Veysel Inal, 2021. "The relationship between tax revenue, government expenditure, and economic growth in G7 countries: new evidence from time and frequency domain approaches," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 305-337, May.
    4. Lau, Evan & Moll de Alba, Jaime & Liew, Kim-Hing, 2022. "Debt and economic growth in Asian developing countries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 599-612.
    5. Kyriaki Efthalitsidou & Eleni Zafeiriou & Konstantinos Spinthiropoulos & Ioannis Betsas & Nikolaos Sariannidis, 2021. "GDP and Public Expenditure in Education, Health, and Defense. Empirical Research for Greece," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(18), pages 1-17, September.
    6. Fedotenkov, Igor & Idrisov, Georgy, 2021. "A supply-demand model of public sector size," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 45(2).
    7. Fedotenkov, Igor & Idrisov, Georgy, 2019. "A supply-demand model of the size of public sector and Wagner's law," MPRA Paper 94973, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Government expenditures; Economic growth; Granger causality analysis; Impulse-response functions (IRF); Forecast-error variance decompositions (FEVD); Vector Autoregressive Models (VAR);
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • C54 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Quantitative Policy Modeling

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