The Role Of The State In Economic Development Do Government Expenditures Promote Growth In Developing Countries

Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Economics - Economic Cycle and Growth, grade: 7, University of Groningen (Faculty of Economics and Business), language: English, abstract: This paper examines the role of the state in economic development. In particular, we test the impact of aggregated and sectoral government expenditures on economic performance in developing countries. Our findings suggest that total government expenditures are negatively related to economic development in both low income and middle income developing countries. However, we find particular evidence that government expenditures prove to be more beneficial for growth when a country is characterized by a well-functional institutional design. In contrast to previous studies, we do not find positive and significant results for sectoral government expenditures. In fact, our findings suggest that transport and communication, defense and health expenditures are negatively related to economic development. At the same time, public and private investments appear to be positively related to economic development throughout our analysis. Therefore, we conclude that – instead of government expenditures – stimulating investments and institutional reforms should play a major part on the political agenda of developing countries.

This paper examines the empirical evidence on the contribution that government and, in particular, capital expenditure make to the growth performance of a sample of developing countries. Using the Denison growth accounting approach, this study finds that social expenditures may have a significant impact on growth in the short run, but infrastructure expenditures may have little influence. While current expenditures for directly productive purposes may exert a positive influence, capital expenditure in these sectors appears to exert a negative influence. Experiments with other explanatory variables confirm the importance of the growth of exports to the overall growth rate.

This paper develops an endogenous growth model of the influence of public investment, public transfers, and distortionary taxation on the rate of economic growth. The growth-enhancing effects of investment in public capital and transfer payments are modeled, as is the growth-inhibiting influence of the levying of distortionary taxes which are used to fund such expenditure. The theoretical implications of the model are then tested with data from 23 developed countries between 1971 and 1988, and time series cross sectional results are obtained which support the proposed influence of the public finance variables on economic growth.

This paper offers possible explanations for three generally observed facts about fiscal policy and development: (F1) The relative size of government increases as an economy develops, (F2) The rise in government and taxation are associated with rising or constant economic growth rates, and (F3) Today's developing countries have larger government sectors than did today's developed countries at similar stages of development. The explanations for these facts are based on the structural transformation from traditional (mostly agricultural) to modern (industrial and post-industrial) production, rising public infrastructure investment, and less representative governments in many of today's developing economies.

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between taxation and public expenditure and economic growth. Particular attention is paid to the effect of taxation and government expenditure on the supply and productivity of labor and physical capital. Studies suggest that well-targeted government expenditures on health, education, and infrastructure should have a positive impact on growth. By contrast, the impact of taxation on the supplies of labor and capital, and on output growth, is more muted.

This book addresses nine relevant questions: Will population growth reduce the growth rate of per capita income because it reduces the per capita availability of exhaustible resources? How about for renewable resources? Will population growth aggravate degradation of the natural environment? Does more rapid growth reduce worker output and consumption? Do rapid growth and greater density lead to productivity gains through scale economies and thereby raise per capita income? Will rapid population growth reduce per capita levels of education and health? Will it increase inequality of income distribution? Is it an important source of labor problems and city population absorption? And, finally, do the economic effects of population growth justify government programs to reduce fertility that go beyond the provision of family planning services?

This paper investigates the short-term effects of fiscal consolidation on economic activity in OECD economies. We examine the historical record, including Budget Speeches and IMFdocuments, to identify changes in fiscal policy motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and not by responding to prospective economic conditions. Using this new dataset, our estimates suggest fiscal consolidation has contractionary effects on private domestic demand and GDP. By contrast, estimates based on conventional measures of the fiscal policy stance used in the literature support the expansionary fiscal contractions hypothesis but appear to be biased toward overstating expansionary effects.