Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation

William Easterly and Sergio Rebelo ()

No 885, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper describes the empirical regularities relating fiscal policy variables, the level of development and the rate of growth. We employ historical data, recent cross-section data, and newly constructed public investment series. Our main findings are: first, there is a strong association between the development level and the fiscal structure: poor countries rely heavily on international trade taxes, while income taxes are only important in developed economies; second, fiscal policy is influenced by the scale of the economy, measured by its population; and third, investment in transport and communication is consistently correlated with growth while the effects of taxation are difficult to isolate empirically.

Keywords: Development; Fiscal Policy; Growth; Infrastructure; Investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E62 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1994-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=885 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation (1993)
Working Paper: Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation (1993)
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:cpr:ceprdp:885

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.cepr.org/ ... pers/dp.php?dpno=885

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().