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Increasing public expenditures: Wagner's law in OECD countries

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  • Lamartina, Serena
  • Zaghini, Andrea

Abstract

The paper proposes a panel cointegration analysis of the joint development of government expenditures and economic growth in 23 OECD countries. The empirical evidence provides indication of a structural positive correlation between public spending and per-capita GDP which is consistent with the so-called Wagner’s law. A long-run elasticity larger than one suggests a more than proportional increase of government expenditures with respect to economic activity. In addition, according to the spirit of the law, we found that the correlation is usually higher in countries with lower per-capita GDP, suggesting that the catching-up period is characterized by a stronger development of government activities with respect to economies in a more advanced state of development.

Suggested Citation

  • Lamartina, Serena & Zaghini, Andrea, 2008. "Increasing public expenditures: Wagner's law in OECD countries," CFS Working Paper Series 2008/13, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cfswop:200813
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal Policy; Wagner's Law; Panel Cointegration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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