Government growth in the twenty-first century

Public choice explanations of government growth fall into three main categories: budget-maximization theories, rational-choice models, and path-dependent models like the “ratchet hypothesis”. The strengths and weaknesses of these theories as explanations for government growth are considered along with some facts about the actual growth of government to conjecture about its trajectory in the twenty-first century. Government size seems to have been constrained in the past primarily by its ability to raise revenue. Growth rates in the new century thus appear to depend on factors constraining government’s ability to continue to expand the tax base. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005