Government size, composition of public expenditure, and economic development

Abstract

" "G Go ov ve er rn nm me en nt t s si iz ze e, , c co om mp po os si it ti io on n o of f p pu ub bl li ic c e ex xp pe en nd di it tu ur re e, , a an nd d e ec co on no om mi ic c d de ev ve el lo op pm me en nt t" " S Su us sa an na a M Ma ar rt ti in ns s F Fr ra an nc ci is sc co o J Jo os sé é V Ve ei ig ga a

The Electoral Dynamics of Human Development

“…19 GovSize is the 'fi_sog' index in the Economic Freedom of the World published by the Fraser Institute. Despite those effects are not relevant in our sample, Martins and Veiga (2014) have found a significant impact of government size on human development in a larger panel of 156 countries and using a convergence specification with 5-year time spans. Our sample only includes countries with established democracies.…”

“…Several studies, in different fields, have used the HDI as a measure of economic development and to test how it reacts to changes in important economic, social and political variables. For example, Ranis et al (2005) show that child mortality is highly correlated with HDI; Timmer and Akkus (2008) assess the gender determinants of long-term human development; Wolfers (2009) Martins and Veiga (2014) analyzes the effects of government size and the composition of public expenditure on economic development.…”

An application of the ELECTRE TRI‐C method to characterize government performance in OECD countries

“…The size of the government is usually calculated as the percentage of the general government total expenditure on GDP (see Martins and Veiga, ). General, rather than central, government data are more appropriate, since many public sector functions may be undertaken at lower government levels.…”

“…The distinct perspectives, experiences, and expectations over the role of the government in domestic economies have naturally been stimulating a prolific body of research. The economic literature is rich in analyses evaluating such issues and recent studies have examined, inter alia , the existence of an optimum government size (Facchini and Melki, ), or the relationship between the size of the government and disparate issues such as human development (Davies, ), economic growth (Yamamura, ), democracy and corruption (Kotera et al., ), economic development (Martins and Veiga, ), trade openness (Jetter and Parmeter, ), or a country's net foreign asset position (Erauskin, ).…”

“…The extensiveness and efficiency of basic infrastructures is evaluated taking into account the quality of the following: transport infrastructure (quality of overall infrastructure, quality of roads, quality of railroad infrastructure, quality of port infrastructure, quality of air transport infrastructure, available airline seat kilometers); electricity and telephony infrastructure (quality of electricity supply, mobile telephone subscriptions, fixed telephone lines The size of the government is usually calculated as the percentage of the general government total expenditure on GDP (see Martins and Veiga, 2014). General, rather than central, government data are more appropriate, since many public sector functions may be undertaken at lower government levels.…”