Does government size affect per-capita income growth? A Hierarchical meta-regression analysis

Sefa Awaworyi Churchill, Mehmet Ugur () and Siew Ling Yew

No 16016, Greenwich Papers in Political Economy from University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre

Abstract: Since the late 1970s, the received wisdom has been that government size (measured as the ratio of total government expenditure to GDP or government consumption to GDP) is detrimental to economic growth. We conduct a hierarchical meta-regression analysis of 799 effect-size estimates reported in 87 primary studies to verify if such assertion is supported by existing evidence. Our findings indicate that the conventional prior belief is supported by evidence mainly from developed countries but not from less developed countries (LDCs). We argue that the negative relationship between government size and economic growth in developed countries may reflect endogeneity bias.

Keywords: Economic growth; Government size; Government expenditure; Government consumption; Meta-analysis; Evidence synthesis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 H50 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-12-07
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Published in Economic Record 300.93(2016): pp. 142-171

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http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/16016/1/16016_Ugur ... %28AAM%29%202016.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Does Government Size Affect Per-Capita Income Growth? A Hierarchical Meta-Regression Analysis (2017)
Working Paper: Does government size affect per-capita income growth? A hierarchical meta-regression analysis (2015)
Working Paper: Does government size affect per-capita income growth? A Hierarchical meta-regression analysis (2015)
Working Paper: Does government size affect per-capita income growth? A Hierarchical meta-regression analysis (2015)
Working Paper: Does government size affect per-capita income growth? A Hierarchical meta-regression analysis (2015)
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