 Accounting for the Growth of GovernmentGary Becker and
Casey B. Mulligan ()
Chapter Chapter 1 in Essays on Government Growth, 2021, pp 1-40 from Springer Abstract: Abstract Why has government grown in so many countries during the twentieth century? We present a simple model of political competition and show how different sources of the growth of government have different effects on the amount and structure of taxes, spending, and regulatory programs undertaken by the government. Those sources include: demographic shifts, more efficient taxes, more efficient spending, a shift in the “political power” from those taxed to those subsidized, shifts in political power among taxed groups, and shifts in political power among subsidized groups. We also show how the effects of each source varies according to the model of public decision-making. Based on a variety of empirical indicators of regulation, we suggest that regulation has grown from 1890 to 1990, but less rapidly than tax revenues. Regulation grew more slowly during the 1980s and, according to some measures, declined. We suggest that the long term regulatory and budgetary trends are consistent with growth in the political power of those subsidized—especially the elderly. The 1980s decline in regulation together with its growth in taxes is not consistent with any one of the theories of government growth. Date: 2021 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:stpchp:978-3-030-55081-3_1 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-55081-3_1 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Studies in Public Choice from Springer |
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