State Capacity and the Quality of Policies. Revisiting the Relationship between Openness and Government Size

Mariano Tommasi, María Franco Chuaire and Carlos Scartascini
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María Franco Chuaire: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

No 115, Working Papers from Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia

Abstract: Countries with different levels of state capacity have access to different sets of policies. In particular, countries with strong state capabilities are able to draw from a broader menu of policies, and pick and successfully implement those policies that best suit the nature of their challenges. In the case of exposure to trade related risk, the literature has usually considered that only one type of policies –those increasing government size- can help to overcome the challenge. However, there are a number of policies that can mitigate trade-induced risks, many of which do not have the necessary implication of increasing public spending. Yet, many such policies require governmental capabilities not available to any country. For that reason, the relationship between openness and the size of government might be mediated by the capabilities of states. The empirical analysis in this paper shows exactly that.

Keywords: government capabilities; quality of policies; openness; government size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 71 pages
Date: 2014-11, Revised 2014-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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https://webacademicos.udesa.edu.ar/pub/econ/doc115.pdf First version, 2014 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: State capacity and the quality of policies. Revisiting the relationship between openness and government size (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sad:wpaper:115

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