ECONOMIC GROWTH AND THE SIZE AND STRUCTURE OF GOVERNMENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR NEW ZEALAND

Arthur Grimes

No 293000, Motu Working Papers from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Abstract: The work of Gwartney, Holcombe and Lawson (GHL, 1998) is cited in New Zealand debate to demonstrate that a larger government share of GDP is detrimental for economic growth. Their work is reassessed here. We find a number of omissions in their analysis lead to a considerable over-statement of the effect of government size on growth. More important for growth, according to other recent work, are the structures of government revenues and expenditures. The size and structure of New Zealand government flows are examined using recent IMF data. This analysis indicates that New Zealand has a relatively small government sector. However, the structures of both government revenues and expenditures warrant attention.

Keywords: Financial Economics; Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31
Date: 2003-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/293000/files/03_10.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:motuwp:293000

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.293000

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Motu Working Papers from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().