War and the growth of government

Colin O'Reilly and Benjamin Powell

European Journal of Political Economy, 2015, vol. 40, issue PA, 31-41

Abstract: This paper empirically examines how wars impact the size and scope of government using a panel of all wars from 1965 to 2010. Higgs (1987) gives us reason to believe that wars may permanently increase government size and scope while Olson (1982) describes how wars can dislodge interest groups and allow for market liberalizing reforms. We find that wars permanently expand the scope of government regulation but do not impact government size systematically across the countries we study.

Keywords: War; Economic freedom; Size of government; Institutional change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H12 N40 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:40:y:2015:i:pa:p:31-41

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.10.001

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