IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hpe/journl/y2018v224i1p13-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wagner’s Law: A Revision and a New Empirical Estimation

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel Jaén-García

    (Universidad de Almería)

Abstract

This study conducts an analysis of the various theoretical and practical problems related to Wagner’s Law on the growth in public spending. As a contribution, and with the intention of offering a new perspective in considering this principle, this paper puts Wagner´s Law to the test for the first time using public employment as a measure of public spending, which is in line with recommendations by Peacock and Scott (2000). In the empirical contrast we use unit root techniques and cointegration with structural breakpoints. The result obtained leads us to reject the law for Spain based on the belief that there are variables other than that GDP which influence public spending growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel Jaén-García, 2018. "Wagner’s Law: A Revision and a New Empirical Estimation," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 224(1), pages 13-35, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:hpe:journl:y:2018:v:224:i:1:p:13-35
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ief.es/comun/Descarga.cshtml?ruta=~/docs/destacados/publicaciones/revistas/hpe/224_Art1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tsangyao Chang & WenRong Liu & Steven Caudill, 2004. "A re-examination of Wagner's law for ten countries based on cointegration and error-correction modelling techniques," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(8), pages 577-589.
    2. Serena Lamartina & Andrea Zaghini, 2011. "Increasing Public Expenditure: Wagner's Law in OECD Countries," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(2), pages 149-164, May.
    3. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Nielsen, Ingrid & Smyth, Russell, 2008. "Panel data, cointegration, causality and Wagner's law: Empirical evidence from Chinese provinces," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 297-307, June.
    4. Oxley, Les, 1994. "Cointegration, Causality and Wagner's Law: A Test for Britain 1870-1913," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 41(3), pages 286-298, August.
    5. Henning, John A & Tussing, A Dale, 1974. "Income Elasticity of the Demand for Public Expenditures in the United States," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 29(3-4), pages 325-341.
    6. Cosimo Magazzino & Lorenzo Giolli & Marco Mele, 2015. "Wagner's Law and Peacock and Wiseman's Displacement Effect in European Union Countries: A Panel Data Study," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 5(3), pages 812-819.
    7. Jan Kuckuck, 2014. "Testing Wagner's Law at Different Stages of Economic Development," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 70(1), pages 128-168, March.
    8. Christian Bjørnskov & Niklas Potrafke, 2013. "The size and scope of government in the US states: does party ideology matter?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(4), pages 687-714, August.
    9. Gerrit B. Koester & Christoph Priesmeier, 2013. "Does Wagner´s Law Ruin the Sustainability of German Public Finances?," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 69(3), pages 256-288, September.
    10. Michas, Nicholas A, 1975. "Wagner's Law of Public Expenditures: What Is the Appropriate Measurement for a Valid Test?," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 30(1), pages 77-85.
    11. François Petry & Louis Imbeau & Jean Crête & Michel Clavet, 2000. "Explaining the Evolution of Government Size in the Canadian Provinces," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(1), pages 26-47, January.
    12. Andrew Pickering & James Rockey, 2013. "Ideology and the size of US state government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 443-465, September.
    13. Gandhi, Ved P, 1971. "Wagner's Law of Public Expenditure: Do Recent Cross-Section Studies Confirm it?," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 26(1), pages 44-56.
    14. Bagala Biswal & Urvashi Dhawan & Hooi-Yean Lee, 1999. "Testing Wagner versus Keynes using disaggregated public expenditure data for Canada," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(10), pages 1283-1291.
    15. Peacock, Alan & Scott, Alex, 2000. "The Curious Attraction of Wagner's Law," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 102(1-2), pages 1-17, January.
    16. Goffman, Irving J & Mahar, Dennis J, 1971. "The Growth of Public Expenditures in Selected Developing Nations: Six Caribbean Countries 1940-65," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 26(1), pages 57-74.
    17. Hondroyiannis, George & Papapetrou, Evangelia, 1995. "An Examination of Wagner's Law for Greece: A Cointegration Analysis," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 50(1), pages 67-79.
    18. Mahmoud Wahab, 2004. "Economic growth and government expenditure: evidence from a new test specification," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(19), pages 2125-2135.
    19. Tsangyao Chang, 2002. "An econometric test of Wagner's law for six countries based on cointegration and error-correction modelling techniques," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(9), pages 1157-1169.
    20. Nadeem Burney, 2002. "Wagner's hypothesis: evidence from Kuwait using cointegration tests," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 49-57.
    21. Henrekson, Magnus, 1993. "Wagner's Law--A Spurious Relationship?," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 48(3), pages 406-415.
    22. Akitoby, Bernardin & Clements, Benedict & Gupta, Sanjeev & Inchauste, Gabriela, 2006. "Public spending, voracity, and Wagner's law in developing countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 908-924, December.
    23. Magazzino, Cosimo, 2012. "Wagner versus Keynes: Public spending and national income in Italy," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 890-905.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manuel Jaen-Garcia, 2011. "Empirical Analysis of Wagner’s Law for the Spain’s Regions," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 1(1), pages 1-17, November.
    2. Philip Arestis & Hüseyin Şen & Ayşe Kaya, 2021. "On the linkage between government expenditure and output: empirics of the Keynesian view versus Wagner’s law," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 265-303, May.
    3. Irandoust, Manuchehr, 2019. "Wagner on government spending and national income: A new look at an old relationship," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 636-646.
    4. Magazzino, Cosimo, 2010. "Wagner's law and augmented Wagner's law in EU-27. A time-series analysis on stationarity, cointegration and causality," MPRA Paper 26668, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Nielsen, Ingrid & Smyth, Russell, 2008. "Panel data, cointegration, causality and Wagner's law: Empirical evidence from Chinese provinces," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 297-307, June.
    6. Ebaid Ali & Bahari Zakaria, 2019. "The Nexus between Government Expenditure and Economic Growth: Evidence of the Wagner’s Law in Kuwait," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, April.
    7. Marco Gallegati & Massimo Tamberi, 2022. "Long swings in the growth of government expenditure: an international historical perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 227-248, September.
    8. Stephen Moore, 2016. "Wagner in Ireland: An Econometric Analysis," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 47(1), pages 69-103.
    9. László Kónya & Bekzod Abdullaev, 2018. "An attempt to restore Wagner’s law of increasing state activity," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1569-1583, December.
    10. Nayak, Dinesh Kumar & Hazarika, Bhabesh, 2022. "Linkage between Income and Government Expenditure at Indian Sub-nationals: A Second Generation Panel Co-integration Techniques," Working Papers 22/374, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    11. Ciro Bazán & Víctor Josué Álvarez-Quiroz & Yennyfer Morales Olivares, 2022. "Wagner’s Law vs. Keynesian Hypothesis: Dynamic Impacts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-25, August.
    12. Omoshoro-Jones, Oyeyinka Sunday, 2016. "A Cointegration and Causality Test on Government Expenditure –Economic Growth Nexus: Empirical Evidence from a South African Province," MPRA Paper 102085, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Oct 2017.
    13. Burak Sencer Atasoy & Timur Han Gür, 2016. "Does the Wagner’s Hypothesis Hold for China? Evidence from Static and Dynamic Analyses," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 63(1), pages 45-60, March.
    14. Funashima, Yoshito, 2015. "Wagner's law versus displacement effect," MPRA Paper 68390, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Dimitrios Sideris, 2007. "Wagner's Law in 19th Century Greece: A Cointegration and Causality Analysis," Working Papers 64, Bank of Greece.
    16. António Afonso & José Alves & Najat Bazah, 2024. "Public Sector Efficiency and the Functions of the Government," CESifo Working Paper Series 11487, CESifo.
    17. E. Chuke Nwude & Tarila Boloupremo, 2018. "Public Expenditure and National Income: Time Series Evidence from Nigeria," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 8(1), pages 71-76.
    18. Cosimo Magazzino, 2012. "The Nexus between Disaggregated Public Spending and GDP in the Euro Area," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(3), pages 2560-2579.
    19. Dimitrios Paparas & Christian Richter & Ioannis Kostakis, 2019. "The validity of Wagner’s Law in the United Kingdom during the Last Two Centuries," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 269-291, April.
    20. Durevall, Dick & Henrekson, Magnus, 2011. "The futile quest for a grand explanation of long-run government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 708-722, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public expenditure; gross domestic product; unit root; cointegration; break points.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hpe:journl:y:2018:v:224:i:1:p:13-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Miguel Gómez de Antonio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iefgves.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.