This paper analyses the impact of public expenditures and tax revenues on non-oil economic growth in Azerbaijan for the period of 2000Q1-2015Q2 by employing OLS, ARDL, FMOLS, DOLS, CCR and Granger Causality techniques. Different cointegration methods result in consistent results. In this study, there is strong evidence of significant long-run positive contributions from public expenditures to non-oil sector output. Results also show that tax revenues significantly slow down non-oil economic growth in the long run. Granger Causality analysis finds the existence of a bidirectional short-run association between non-oil GDP and public expenditures, while tax revenues Granger Cause both variables. The research findings should be useful for Azerbaijan fiscal policy makers to consider now and in the future. Current plans in Azerbaijan for both public expenditure cuts and tax revenue increases are likely to cause contraction in the Azerbaijan's non-oil sector GDP.
ABSTRACT.Using country-level data from 2000-2013, we test the relationship between life satisfaction (measured as how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings) and the motivation to work (measured as aggregate hours of work). Our hypothesis is that even after controlling for average labor income tax rates in countries with high and low average hours worked, there is a significant negative association between the motivation to work and life satisfaction. The main findings of this paper are that the increase in the motivation to work per employee comes at the expense of life satisfaction, and differences in average tax rates on labor income cannot account for differences in time allocation. Once life satisfaction is included, the hypotheses of previous neoclassical economic studies are almost irrelevant in determining the response of market hours to higher average tax rates on labor income. In line with our assumption, we find a negative relationship between life satisfaction and the motivation to work in the cross-country examinations. In countries with the highest hours worked (Hungary, Estonia), wealth is generally preferred to leisure and in countries with the lowest hours worked (France, Germany), leisure is preferred to wealth. JEL Classification: H20, J01, J29
Previous research on the relation between wealth and life satisfaction has found conflicting results. The current study aims to bring a "wave formation" framework to the subjective well-being literature to understand the features of non-linearity in the income-life satisfaction association. The study compares individuals' life satisfaction at various wealth levels, moving their way up or down through the income stratum. We hypothesize that when someone with increasing income reaches the top of one stratum their satisfaction is high, but when they move from the top of one stratum to the bottom of the next their satisfaction declines, leading to a wave pattern. Using a cross-sectional design for the dataset of 1654 respondents in Azerbaijan, we apply the Ordered Logit method to identify the income borders of ups-and-downs in the "wave." Threshold levels for each wave element are then calculated separately for males and females after controlling for a set of individual-specific factors. Empirical results support the hypothesis, with life satisfaction following a wave formation. The research findings have implications for policymakers and future research.
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